Unbelievers
by Poli Almasy
Summary: Lone Wanderer Tate has no idea what he's doing, so he ends up with neutral karma because he just rolls with what seems right at the time. He's wrong, a lot. He's also got some intense daddy issues and is constantly sleeping with older men. Predictably, this upsets Butch, who doesn't know why he follows Tate around (right, because he's secretly/not so secretly in love with him).
1. Changing Hands (MLW Harkness)

A/N De-anon from the kink meme. Each of these stories has different pairings for sex stuff, but uses the same LW and should be consistent plotwise. The overarching pairing is M!LW/Butch. They skip around in time and should, theoretically, function as one-shots. See top of each chapter for notes about content. Some of these are very adult on a number of levels.

In this chapter: no explicit sex, implied M!LW/Butch, implied M!LW/Charon, some sort of slashy bits between M!LW/Harkness. Slavery, mild drug use, violence/physical abuse, really unlikable LW.

* * *

><p>The three of them touched down Rivet City like damn tornadoes. Two vault kids and a giant ghoul. They had been through before, well, the blond vault kid in sunglasses and the ghoul. Asking around after the kid's dad and generally harassing Dr. Li and the other scientists. Didn't seem like such a problem then, more of an annoyance.<p>

Then there were the rumors, later the confirmation, about what happened down the road at the Jefferson Memorial. Kid's dad died, scientists were evacuated. None of that particularly troubled Harkness. His ducks were in a row and Rivet City was safe, secure, peaceful. He remained vigilant, but he wasn't worried. Wasn't his job to waste time on other trifles. Was his job to keep the boat safe.

The second time they came through the boat, it was the three of them. Blond vault kid, brunet vault kid, scary ghoul. Harkness liked the ghoul best though. Ghoul spent his time on the upper deck smoking quietly and staying out of everyone's way. Maybe just a tip of the hat when Harkness was on his rounds. The ghoul gave him no problems.

The vault kids on the other hand.

They spent their days breaking into other people's rooms, harassing visitors and locals alike, and playing with explosives just on the other side of the bridge. Tossing grenades and smacking them into the distance with a baseball bat. At least it was on the other side of the bridge. But still, the bangs and pops were quite the disturbance. He should be so lucky that they blow themselves up.

* * *

><p>One night Harkness was called down to the Muddy Rudder because the kids got into a bar fight. That wasn't his jurisdiction, but apparently it ended with the brunet pulling down his vault suit and the blond's face falling into his lap 'accidentally'. Brock said he wasn't handling that shit.<p>

* * *

><p>A week later the brunet vault kid got up in his face and it became apparent why the two of them had been sneaking around other people's rooms all the time. The blond smiled sheepishly as the brunet read out the recall code. As Harkness reset, the kids exchanged caps.<p>

Turned out, they had 'him' backed-up on the blond's Pip-boy.

* * *

><p>So now, there was no way to get these kids off the damn ship. Being a runaway android babysitting spoiled brats was exactly what Harkness planned on doing with the rest of his life. They apparently decided to take up permanent residence on the ship. Brunet cut people's hair and blond seemingly did nothing all day but buy junk from one vendor and manage to sell it to another at a higher price. Never took off his sunglasses either. Even inside the ship. Even at night. Even inside the ship at night.<p>

The ghoul just bought packs of cigarettes. The ghoul was fine by Harkness's reckoning.

"Hey, Droid." It was the brunet vault kid, his leather jacket tied around his hips and the zipper of his suit halfway down. He had a pack of cigarettes in his hand, offering one to Harkness.

"I thought we agreed not to speak of this."

The kid shrugged and Harkness refused the offered cigarette.

"Shouldn't you be with your hooligan friend, anyway?"

"Nah man," the kid hung over the railing overlooking the marketplace. If he leaned over any more he might have an unfortunate accident. "Tate's busy; getting plowed by Charon."

Right, the three permanent visitors had names. Charon, Butch, Tate. Wait, what had Butch said? It was probably in Harkness's best interest to ignore that statement and just move on with his life.

With surprising agility, Butch raised his entire weight up and over the railing using the strength in his arms, flipping over the bar and landing on the marketplace floor below. "See ya, Droid."

Fucking vault kids.

* * *

><p>Somehow the vault kids thought they could get away with testing their little explosives on the deck, rather than across the bridge like they used to. Harkness was on the receiving end of some very frantic messages that those boys were nearly blowing their hands off. Good. But he had to minimize damage to the boat, so he had to go break them up.<p>

By the time he made it into the muggy D.C. air, the vault kids had abandoned their smoldering pile of crude explosives and were fighting each other. Not in a friendly way, far as Harkness could tell.

He could also tell that the kids were shit with explosives, from the smell he could make out the chemical composition. They were better with their fists. They had no idea what they were doing, they were just being menaces.

Since harm to the ship would be minimal with a fist fight, and they would eventually tire themselves out, Harkness instead went to stand by Charon. The ghoul offered him a cigarette and he accepted, lighting it and then offering his own lighter in return. They stood against the railing watching the kids scratch and claw and scream.

"Aren't you supposed to be that one's bodyguard?" That one being the slightly-shorter blond.

"Aren't you supposed to be the chief of security?" No argument there.

When they had finished their cigarettes, Harkness took out his own pack and offered one to Charon.

"What is this even about?" Harkness didn't expect any sort of reasonable answer. These kids didn't seem to have any rhyme or reason to what they did. Stuff just happened for the sake of stuff happening. They were the worst type to have to contend with.

"Butch doesn't want Tate using me for intercourse anymore. Says I loosen him up too much," the ghoul would have been smirking, if he had lips.

Well, that's a way to get a guy to regret trying to make friends.

* * *

><p>Harkness didn't know where the vault kids found so much spray paint. Just at some point they got tired of painting giant white penises and 'FUCK THE ENCLAVE' on the walls of storage rooms and then decided to huff the gas inside the cans instead. Vera found them twitching and wheezing on the floor when she went for a fresh box of detergent.<p>

It was unclear how the penises were supposed to help in their vendetta against the Enclave, or what the storage rooms had particularly done to offend their sensibilities.

* * *

><p>All the whiskey bottles in the Muddy Rudder had been filled with red wine. All the red wine bottles had been refilled with whiskey. Gin had been found taped to the ceiling. The beer had remained untouched.<p>

Harkness knew the vault kids only drank beer. Or at least they only drank beer now, after Tate spent hours throwing up all over himself in the abandoned science lab, mumbling about what a disappointment he had been to his father and clutching a bottle of vodka like it was his best friend.

If he wasn't such a shithead, Harkness might have felt bad for the kid. But yeah, he was probably a disappointment.

* * *

><p>When Mister Buckingham repeated nothing but "Seagrave sucks horse cock" over and over again, Harkness's hands were tied.<p>

He may have ended up ratted out the the Commonwealth, he may have ended up reset, again, but he couldn't stay here as the head of security and do nothing about those fucking vault kids who had nothing better to do all day but cause trouble and cut hair and buy things only to sell them back.

* * *

><p>"Hey, Droid, you wanted me?"<p>

Harkness had decided on dealing with each boy individually. All the signs had pointed to these being joint operations. Neither were tall enough to reach the ceiling of the Rudder unassisted, they had been found together in the supply closet, and while Butch was apparently the one better with robots, well, it just had to be the both of them working together.

Tate was wearing his jumpsuit down, with the arms hanging loosely around his waist, exposing his undershirt. Ever present sunglasses shaded his eyes and the barest hint of black roots were apparent in his hair. He and Butch must have been fighting this week, normally his color was consistent, if obviously unnatural. He wouldn't be surprised if the kid just dipped his whole head in bleach to achieve the effect. Maybe he could just drown in it.

"Your behavior has been unacceptable." Harkness didn't really think that Tate could be reasoned with. Nothing about his behavior suggested that. Still he had to give it his best attempt, try and be civil.

"Dunno, being a runaway piece of expensive equipment is also pretty unacceptable." A direct threat and a smile on his lips the whole time.

Harkness's reaction times were rapid. Much more rapid than a human body could fathom. In one smooth motion he had Tate by the front of his dingy tee and his back pressed up against the wall of his office.

"Don't you dare tempt me, kid."

While initially the wind had been knocked out of him, as soon as he recovered his breath, Tate was running his mouth again. "You forget, I got a best friend with a violent streak and a giant comando slave that'll kick the shit out of you if anything happens. By the time they're done with you, the Commonwealth won't want your fancy robot ass back. There'll be nothing of value left."

Harkness tightened his grip on Tate's shirt, pulling him away from the wall before slamming him back against it. The fabric gave way and ripped as Harkness tried to keep the kid suspended in the air.

"Thought you were supposed to be fancy. Don't feel all that strong to me."

The punk was testing him, trying to draw a reaction. Yeah, Harkness was a machine, so he should have been able to control himself, but he was also a man, so he would give into impulse. The crack that resonated when Tate was thrown against the opposite wall was satisfying. He wasn't small, a bit short, but not small. Harkness had seen the vault kids in action enough times to know they were both muscular, vainly so. Mostly they used it to beat on each other.

"Yeah, Droid," Tate was wobbly on his feet. "Do it again."

This wasn't going to work. Harkness sent the kid away.

* * *

><p>The vault kids had been off the boat for six days now. It was maybe too much to ask that they never return. Six days of uninterrupted meals and quiet nights. Life almost seemed normal again. Harkness could focus on relevant issues, like defending against super mutants and secretly doting on C.J. and Bryan, slipping them sweets. Bryan said Tate had been the one to save him; Harkness didn't believe it for one second.<p>

Instead of using the intercom, like normal fucking people, Tate and Butch announced their arrival by throwing a grenade against the side of the boat. That was good enough of a provocation that Harkness didn't have one qualm at all returning fire.

If he wanted it, Harkness had access to perfect accuracy. Rarely did he use it. He knew well enough it was suspicious. Instead of aiming for the head, he hit Butch in the shoulder, Tate in the upper thigh. The ghoul wasn't with them.

They yelled and cursed, but neither drew their guns. Less than five minutes later, they slinked off, Butch helping Tate stumble along by offering his good shoulder. Tate's late father was supposed to be a doctor. They would probably live to see another day.

* * *

><p>Another six weeks and the Brotherhood of Steel had taken Jefferson Memorial. Didn't much matter to Harkness who controlled the building, as long as they didn't cause the boat any trouble. He did smile though, when purified water began lapping at the hull.<p>

* * *

><p>Butch came back, alone. Didn't talk to anyone, didn't cause any problems. Just sat and drank, slept on a cot in the common room and sometimes cut hair.<p>

In a round about way, Harkness heard that Tate was laid up at the Citadel. Coma. For weeks now. Dumb kid had activated the purifier as some sort of heroic final act. Wanted to go out like his father did. In a second hand way, Harkness felt like he knew about daddy issues.

Then one day, eight weeks later, Butch up and left real fast, left most of his things behind. Either Tate had died or woken up. Harkness didn't care which it was, so long as the two of them didn't come back. Life had been good.

* * *

><p>Harkness almost didn't register the shortish blond head of hair and sunglasses as the kid whipped past him in the corridor. No, fucking no. Not again. Where there was one, there was sure to be another, but he had to make a decision and a bird in the hand was worth two in the bush, so he took off after Tate. It was hard to be quiet with doors so heavy and he easily trapped the vault kid in Paulie's 'secret' stash room.<p>

"Get off my ship."

"Hell no." Tate was out of breath and panting, being out cold for months probably resulted in an endurance decrease.

"Get off my ship."

"I haven't done anything wrong."

"You tried to blow the city up, on multiple occasions. You've been a thorn in my side and a menace to the people of this city."

"No I didn't. I haven't been. We were just messing around. Aren't I supposed to be some kind of hero or something? That's what everyone tells me."

Harkness pushed Tate against the broken filing cabinets easily, causing the kid to stumble backwards and land on his ass. "I don't care who you are out there."

"Fuck this, Butch'll reset you again. I could use a new slave." Every word Tate spoke was venom. How could anyone mistake him for a good person? Did he have everyone fooled? Did having an exceptional father give the kid a free pass at life? To assume he was so fucking special?

Everything escalated quickly. Tate seemed to have that effect on people.

Harkness grabbed Tate by the front of his vault suit, yanking him up off the floor and easily pinning him to the wall with one hand. Predictably, Tate fought back, kicking and punching with enough grace and enough power that he would have won against a flesh and blood human. He had all his angles right, gaining as much leverage as he could, extending his limbs further than he should have been able to, demonstrating exceptional flexibility. He pulled his legs to his chest and pushed out and against Harkness with tremendous force. But it wouldn't work. Harkness could just absorb all of it without flinching. This was the monster that the vault kids had revealed. They were probably so fucking proud of themselves too.

With his free hand, Harkness pulled the sunglasses right off the kid's face and smashed them under his boot. Tate's fighting stopped and instead he used his hands to shield his face. Behind his palms his voice roared.

"You fucking piece of shit robot motherfucker I'll have Butch take you apart piece by piece and I will piss on your insides you metal piece of crap I hope you short circuit and die."

Harkness punched him, augmented strength and all, full on the side of his face. There was a crack and Tate whimpered pathetically. At least that shut him up. Instinctively, his hands moved from his eyes and instead tried to protect his injured jaw. A swift boot to Tate's stomach and the kid coughed, hard and red and all over the front of his jumpsuit and the floor as he slid down the wall. The tremor that accompanied the cough clearly caused more pain in his jaw and he shuddered.

Clever boy, looking so completely broken and then sweeping Harkness's feet out from under him. The back of his head hit the floor, metal on metal with just a thin veneer of artificial flesh and hair. It was like Tate didn't know what he was up against, or didn't care.

When Tate spat again, it was in Harkness's face, full of blood and phlegm. The disgusting little shit.

The kid had climbed on top of Harkness and was hitting him in the face. Synthetic blood welled up from Harkness's nose, his split lip too. Tate had gotten him good. He was strong, a good fighter, but still a fragile, living thing. All bones and tendons and flesh, breakable things. Fury and desperation were apparent in Tate's dark-brown eyes. Kid wasn't an idiot, he couldn't beat an android to death and he knew it. Didn't know anything about robots, but he knew about fighting and he knew he was in trouble.

That Pip-boy on Tate's wrist was the greatest indignity of it all. The idea that Harkness was nothing but a collection of 1s and 0s that could be just as easily stored on this punk's wrist as in his sophisticated body. That he was merely a program written by a curious scientist in a very expensive casing.

Harkness grabbed hold of the Pip-boy and started twisting, yanking the thing off of the kid's wrist, but it wouldn't come. Instead of the mechanism coming away from Tate's skin, it twisted and pulled with his flesh. Tate's skin remained firmly attached to the Pip-boy and instead began ripping away from his muscle. Blood, warm and red, seeped out from under the casing and ran down Tate's hand and onto Harkness. He was skinning the kid. Fuck.

Harkness tossed the boy back across the room like he weighed nothing. Another shout from Tate filled the small room as his leg collapsed under his off-kilter weight. Broken. He would have to drag himself off the ship now. Maybe on his hands and knees. But his left arm hung largely useless as well.

"Shit, shit." Tate didn't speak again after that. His jaw probably hurt too much.

* * *

><p>Always with the vault kids. Butch stalked his way across the marketplace, jumping up and grabbing hold of the platform so he could pull himself up and over the railing. Did these kids not believe in stairs? Also, they had clearly come from some vault that was making monkey hybrids, with the way they could move and twist and bend.<p>

"You know why I'm here, Droid." Butch offered him a cigarette; Harkness refused.

"Suppose so." Harkness lit a smoke from his own pack instead.

"Tate wants to keep you."

"And you don't?"

There was another option. There was always running. Kill Tate, kill Butch, and run. But that would be letting go of the last piece of the man he thought he had been able to become. He'd have to remember this time. Remember that he beat the messed up boy who provided seemingly infinite clean water to the Wasteland until he couldn't walk, until he sobbed like the child he still clearly was. This was better, he wouldn't remember this way. Though he had a feeling that Tate and Butch would remind him. At least, this way, he wouldn't have to pretend to be a kind man, a good man, pretend to be a man at all.

Butch stood beside him, leaning over the railing and smoking his cigarette like they were having a casual conversation. Like they were talking about the damn weather.

"No, I don't." Butch inclined his head away from Harkness, obscuring his face as he spoke. "I'd rather watch you sink, while mirelurks chewed on your circuits." He stared out across the marketplace.

"Jealous?" Neither one of the vault kids seemed very good at keeping secrets. They were so obvious.

Tate was there, at the opposite end of the marketplace. The Pip-boy had switched from his bandaged left arm onto his right wrist. Sunglasses on, his face was impassive.

The brunet vault kid put out his cigarette butt on the railing.

"Activate A3-21 recall code viol..."


	2. Nights No Longer (Mr Burke MLW)

Tate was sick and tired of spending caps he didn't have on a room rented out by a man who wouldn't tell him where his Pop went. Sick and tired of having his hair grow out too, without Butch around. His black roots were starting to show.

It was torturous, being so near to home but feeling like a whole world away. And this shit had to go down right as he and Butch were...warming to each other. When he found his Pop, he was going to sock him right in the jaw first. Honestly he might cry like a baby afterwards, but he would definitely get the punch in first.

He was scared, but no one had to know that.

So far his days had been spent running errands for Moira and his evenings drinking at Moriarty's. He was 'in debt' but he didn't quite understand what that meant, he was a fast learner, though. Knew it wasn't a good place to be. In the vault everything was free, if occasionally rationed. This caps situation was something else. Moira gave him some caps and tradeables for his errands and other things he sweet talked his way into. Things were alright, he supposed.

When the handsome, older man in tinted glasses beckoned him over, Tate didn't think much of it. The vault suit and Pip-boy seemed to attract attention from all sorts of people, but Tate didn't know what else to do at this point.

The stranger in the suit wore tinted lenses and so did Tate. The effect was their eyes were utterly hidden from one another. He told Moira it was because the sun was so damn bright compared to the artificial lights in the vault. Near blinded him. But it was really because on first getting a good look at him, Deputy Weld had cried "communist scum," and started shooting. And like hell he was going through that shit again. He paid for his private room at Moriarty's just so he could take off the damn glasses when he slept.

"My, my, when I had just about given up all hope." The man gestured to Gob to bring over two drinks to his table. "My dear boy, I am very happy to make your acquaintance. My name is Mr. Burke."

Gob set a whiskey on the table for Mr. Burke and a beer for Tate.

"Ghoul, why don't you bring my friend here something a bit stronger, hm?"

Tate was about to object, but the look that Mr. Burke sent his way made him think twice. Instead he reclined in his seat, slouching down and letting his legs slide away for the chair.

"And you, well, you are not a resident of this putrescent cesspool. That makes you a valuable individual."

Gob returned with a small glass of vodka and placed it in front of Tate before scurrying off. Normally, Tate and Gob got along pretty well, once he had gotten over how fucking weird ghouls looked.

Tate took a hesitant sip of the vodka, it burned going down but it wasn't altogether bad.

"Go on, I'm listening." With each sip his cheeks flushed a bit more.

"The undetonated atomic bomb for which the town is named is still very much alive. It just needs a little motivation."

Under the table, Tate felt Mr. Burke's leg tap against the outside of his knee.

"I have in my possession a fusion pulse charge constructed for the single purpose of detonating that bomb."

Having finished the vodka, Tate began on his beer. Mr. Burke hadn't touched his whiskey though.

"You rig the bomb. Then you get paid, handsomely."

The leg that had been tapping against his moved, sliding between Tate's, spreading him little by little. Tate's face was warm from the liquor. Was vodka really that much stronger? He barely had anything. In the vault he only ever had beer.

"Wait...you're going to destroy the town? I live here."

Well, he did, as much as he lived anywhere.

"Come now, my sweet boy. You would be doing this world a favor by removing this pestilent scab of a town."

Mr. Burke's leg moved gently against Tate's, heat creeping through the fabric of his vault suit.

"I don't know how. No good with explosives. Sheriff Simms asked me to disarm it."

"Hmm," Mr. Burke sat back in his chair, swirling his whiskey about in the glass but still not drinking. "It's not complicated. But still, it appears I have misjudged you." He withdrew and they were no longer touching, but Tate kept his legs slightly spread.

Mr. Burke stood, adjusting his tie and placing his hat back on his head. "I do have a second proposition for you. Perhaps one more suited to your tastes. Come see me at my home, if you are interested."

With that, Burke left the bar, but not before stopping and speaking to Gob. The glass of whiskey was left behind and Gob came by with another vodka. Tate shot it down quickly before heading out the door.

The Wasteland was warmer than the vault, but Tate liked the way the air moved. And he liked the stars and the sky. Still hated his Pop though, because while he liked the air and the stars and the sky, he hated everything else.

He already knew which door belonged to the man in the suit. Over the days he had spent in Megaton, he had seen the man come in and out of it.

This was okay, it meant he didn't have to spend the caps for a bed tonight. The vodka had made him a bit bolder. This would be fine, just a little bit of fun. So what if the guy was older? He and Butch fooled around plenty of times in the last year and the experience had been nothing but positive. This would be fine.

"Welcome, I had hoped I had not judged incorrectly a second time. That would reflect rather poorly on me." Tate had only managed half a knock at the door before Mr. Burke opened it, two tumblers of liquor in one hand. He passed one to Tate before traveling back into the living room.

Mr. Burke sat on the plush couch in the center of the room and spread his arms across the backrest. A lit cigar burned in an ashtray on the coffee table. Plush was really the word for the place. What Tate had seen so far of Megaton had consisted of dingy mattresses and rusty structures. Everything was rickety, nothing stable. But this was nice, with carpet on the floor and clean glasses lined up in the kitchen.

"I must apologize for the state of the place. Luxury is difficult to cobble together in such a sore on the landscape." Mr. Burke finished the liquor in his glass and set the tumbler on the table in front of him, exchanging it for the cigar. He still wore his suit but had loosened his tie and removed the tinted glasses.

"No need to be shy now, pretty bird. We both know why you are here, yes?"

"Uh, yeah."

"Come, sit with me."

Tate toed off his boots and left them by the door. It seemed like the right thing to do, rather than trek mud through the house. Mud on the bottoms of his shoes was a new thing too. He sat next to Mr. Burke on the couch, still clutching his tumbler and taking slow sips from it. The whiskey didn't suit him as much as the vodka had.

An arm curled down off the backrest and instead came to settle over Tate's shoulder. He settled against Burke's side, feeling warm and drunk and comfortable and sipped while Burke finished his smoke.

"Hey, you haven't seen my Pop, have you?" Tate was desperate for something to break the silence.

"Wouldn't know."

"Well, he looks like me, I guess. Taller, with black hair and brown eyes."

Burke laughed unexpectedly. "So not your size, with a different hair color, and I have yet to have the pleasure of seeing your eyes, pretty bird."

"Right, well..."

"Now is perhaps not the opportune time to be discussing your father. As I plan on doing things to you of which he would be unlikely to approve."

"Yeah, yeah." Taking the initiative, Tate put his empty tumbler down next to the ashtray and turned towards Burke, pressing their lips together. Burke tasted like whiskey and smoke and smelled like it too along with some other cologne. For now, he let Tate move against him as he liked, but wrapped his arm around his waist, half-guiding the teen to come closer. Another hand brushed against the outside of his thigh, then the inside, coming to rest just inches from where Tate wanted to be touched.

Little by little, Tate worked his way into Burke's lap, straddling him and running his hands down the older man's chest. Too old, really, old enough to be his father. Still, he began teasing Burke's buttons open, undoing the tie at his throat. The confidence of some experience combined with the liquor and Tate felt pretty damn good about himself.

"Pretty bird, let's do away with these." That tease of a hand left Tate's thigh and moved to his face, sliding his sunglasses up and off the bridge of his nose. He gasped in surprise but was too late to stop Burke. "Quite, pretty, why would you hide your eyes?"

Tate hadn't realized that he had screwed his eyes shut when he tore away from Burke's lips, as if he could keep things hidden that way. Cautiously, he opened his eyes and met Burke's gaze.

"Robot out front called me a commie. Tried to kill me."

Burke ran a careful finger across the short dark lashes that punctuated Tate's monolids, first one set, then the other. "Beautiful." Tate closed his eyes again as Burke kissed the right side of his brow bone, "exotic," then the other side.

Instead of listen to Burke keep talking, Tate silenced him, if only temporarily, with his lips. Most of his buttons were undone and Tate pawed at Burke's chest, trying to get both the shirt and jacket off in one go. There was that laugh again from the center of Burke's chest. Fingers unaccustomed to work pulled down the zipper of Tate's vault suit halfway.

"Tell me, pretty bird. Have you kissed someone like this? You're so young."

Tate didn't think 19 was so young. "Yeah."

Burke kept hold of him around his waist as he arched away from the couch and worked one sleeve off, then the other, switching positions to keep Tate firmly in his lap. With the manipulating, Tate could feel Burke's erection pressing into his thigh.

"With a man, pretty bird?"

"Yeah." Well, boys, really, but they were both about 18 when it started, so, maybe men.

"And what about this?" Burke took hold of one of Tate's hands and guided it to his erection, having the vaultie's hand run down the length of it through his suit pants. It twitched a bit under Tate's light touches. "Have you pleasured a man with your hand, pretty bird?"

Tate knew his face was flushed, and not only from the liquor. He was sobering up, sort of. "Yeah."

"And what about your mouth, pretty bird." A well-manicured finger ran along Tate's bottom lip, dipping in slightly then continuing its path. "Have you sucked cock, pretty bird?"

"Yeah." Tate could feel his own erection growing in the confines of his vault suit. He wanted to get on with it already. This teasing was driving him up the wall. With Butch, they had always cut this crap and gone right to grinding or sucking or whatever it was they were gonna do.

"And here?" Burke moved both his hands around Tate's body and grabbed hold of his ass, pulling the teen towards him and pressing their bodies together. His hands squeezed and then he ran the tips of his fingers along the line of Tate's crack, spreading him through the vault suit and pressing against his hole. Even through the layers of fabric, Burke seemed to find him vulnerable. "Have you allowed a man fuck your ass, pretty bird?"

Coarse language had always done it for Tate. He and Butch had started out watching forbidden holotapes together that the barber had found on one of the old terminals. It was a peace offering that lead to their messing with each other. Tate had liked how the guys in the tapes spoke, so it didn't matter that the subject on the other end of those statements had been some artificial looking doll of a girl.

"No," Tate gasped as Burke bit at his shoulder, now exposed as his vault suit pooled around his waist.

"Mmm," the sound emanated from Burke's throat and vibrated against Tate's flesh. "Good boy, why don't we go to bed, hm?"

Nodding, Tate climbed off of Burke's lap, clutching at his vault suit so it wouldn't slide off his narrow hips. Burke's hand rested on the small of his naked back as he guided Tate to the bedroom. The bed was big and clean and the room smelled like Burke's cologne. It was way nicer than the room he rented at Moriarty's.

"We're overdressed." Burke stood behind Tate, his erection pressing just above the curve of the blond's ass. Tate always had a bit of a chip on his shoulder about being shorter than most other men in the vault. Out here in the Wastes, he seemed more average height, but Burke was still a good few inches taller.

Burke's fingers tugged at the zipper at the front of Tate's suit and finished pulling it down. Since his arms were already free, he only had to push the suit down over his hips and thighs to get it to fall to the floor. Burke kissed between his shoulder blades and Tate shuddered at the contact.

Suddenly, Tate was pushed forward and he fell face first onto the bed, his legs dangling a bit off the edge. Burke's hands grabbed his hips, pulling them up so Tate was on his knees on the bed. Leaving one hand on his hip, Burke's other hand pushed at his shoulder blades, keeping his head down and his ass in the air.

Tate knew he was stronger than Burke, much stronger. While Burke may have been taller, he was rather lanky, all things considered. Tate was shorter, but dense, muscular. He and Butch tried to one up each other in that respect. Wasn't much else to do in the vault. Hair only grew so fast and there was only so much...chaplining for Tate to do, he still didn't really understand what his job was. So there wasn't much to do in the vault other than work out and mess around in supply closets. Tate knew he was much stronger than Burke, but he didn't fight him, didn't want to.

When Burke's hot, moist tongue pressed against his entrance, Tate jerked and shivered and moaned. He didn't make a move to touch Tate's cock, but for now that was okay because this felt fucking great and it was something new and exciting. It wasn't until the tongue was replaced with two long digits that Tate squirmed and felt his stomach drop. What had he gotten himself into?

He kept repeating in his mind that this was okay, this was fun and the bed was really nice. It didn't matter that this same guy fingering his ass had asked him to blow up the town. He backed off, after all, when Tate hadn't been interested. And he was a good kisser and whiskey wasn't so bad really when Tate was sucking it off of Burke's tongue.

"Ready, my pretty bird?"

Tate groaned in response because he was a little past words at this point. This wasn't Butch though, but Butch was behind sixteen solid, sealed, inches of vault-tec security doors. Butch was safe and warm below ground. Butch didn't know the taste of irradiated water or the fear that came from raiders being just in the other aisle of the supermarket your next meal was supposed to be coming from. Tate missed Butch, but this was okay.

"Do it already."

It was agonizing, the way Burke slid into him, inch by inch until he was sheathed. Tate held back everything he felt in that moment, because he wasn't sure any of this was real. Wasn't worth crying over. Only a few days out and he already suspected things got worse than this. He'd seen the naked corpses in raiders' beds.

"My pretty bird," both of Burke's hands tangled in the bleached hair at the back of Tate's head, holding his face down in the mattress. "You're so young and tight."

"Move," Tate grumbled into the mattress.

His head and shoulders remained pressed into the mattress as Burke fucked him, long and slow like this was supposed to be romantic. And yeah, Tate didn't find it entirely distasteful. But Burke had also left his pants on, only opening them to free his cock and his belt buckle pressed into Tate's thigh. Not so romantic after all.

Once he managed to get his hand on his own cock, things felt a lot better. He felt full and kind of slutty and he got off on that. It was this terrible in between state he was having trouble with. Part of him wanted to be here just because the bed smelled like detergent and not like piss. Part of him liked getting fucked from behind because it made him feel cheap and dirty, but part of him liked it because he couldn't see Burke; he could pretend it was Butch.

All the same, he jerked his cock until he came on the otherwise-clean sheets. He panted and moaned and thrust himself onto Burke's cock until he covered his insides with cum. The wet pop as Burke withdrew was such an obscene noise. Tate liked it just fine. His hips dropped to the mattress and he stretched his arms over his head, working out the tension he had stored up while bent into an unnatural position.

"You look good like that, pretty bird." Burke kissed his back and ruffled his hair.

Tate slid around until his back was against the mattress. The pillows were soft and the room smelled different now, but still nice. Burke had zipped up his pants and sat on the edge of the bed.

"Won't you reconsider, about the bomb, love? We could be rid of this place and I'll take you home with me. The view from my suite will be all the more beautiful with you in it." His hand rested on Tate's naked hip, just where the muscle cut into a sharp v.

"I gotta find my Pop. He's the reason I'm out here." Tate stared up at the ceiling. "You know what I mean now, right? About us looking related?"

"I saw him speak to Moriarty. But I do not know where he went after that."

The mattress rose as Burke stood. Tate could hear him moving about the room, but he kept his eyes closed. He was more than half asleep when Burke nudged him awake.

"It is time for you to go, pretty bird." But he was so warm and comfortable. Had he really been asleep that long? Tate looked at his Pip-boy. No, he hadn't even slept ten minutes. Sitting up in the brightly lit room, he saw his vault suit, sunglasses, and some mechanical object sitting neatly on a chair across from the bed.

Burke was telling him to get the fuck out. No one could call Tate an idiot.

"Yeah, okay." He swung his legs over the side of the bed and padded to the chair, carefully dressing himself. His upper thighs and ass were fucking sore already, a little bit in his back, too. Great, fucking great. Tried whoring himself a little for a nice place to crash and that hadn't worked out. And he was too damn proud to ask to stay.

Covering his eyes with the sunglasses, he headed for the door, leaving the device-thing behind. Tate was tying his boots back up when Burke emerged from the bedroom, thing in his hands.

"I cannot take you away from this place until you arm the bomb, pretty bird." He pressed the pulse charge into Tate's hands, kissing him only when it was clear Tate wouldn't drop it.

"Yeah, okay." Sticking the thing awkwardly in his pocket, he left Burke's house.

He didn't look at the sky or the stars as he stalked towards Megaton's public house. Facing Gob was not something he would be interested in at the moment. The ghoul was too damn perceptive.

Instead of using the ramps to change between the settlement's sloped levels, Tate grappled old of rickety guard rails and pulled himself up and in between bars, sliding with practiced grace. His pack was back at Moriarty's, he'd have to grab it in the morning.

That night he slept with his sunglasses on. In the morning, he put the pulse charge away in his pack. Carried it around with him for months. Carried it long after Burke's love letters stopped and the mercs began. Carried it after he bought Charon and freed Butch. Carried it after Charon died. Carried it when he started the purifier and he supposed it sat in his pack through the coma. Carried it after they picked up the android. Carried it after Butch told him he loved him, why couldn't Tate love him back?

Tate threw it into the sea at Point Lookout. Watched it sink.


	3. And Came to Ruin (Butch MLW)

It had been two weeks since Amata sent out the radio broadcast. Over four months since he had left the vault. They weren't sure if it would reach him, out there on the other side of the door. Weren't sure he was even alive. But Amata has been so resolute in her belief that if only he heard it, he would come. Come home, to them. Tate.

Her belief was so strong, Butch couldn't help but start believing too.

During the day he would sit at the doctor's old desk and bat at the bobble head. He'd read everyone's medical records from before the doc went and fucked up everyone's lives. Before he had opened up the possibility of life outside the vault. Butch didn't know how much he ached for it before then.

The password Tate's dad had set on the terminal had been absolute shit. Broke it in thirty-two seconds flat.

During the night he would crawl into bed with Amata, even though she'd make a token protest. Never said no, though. He'd argue that they were already in enough trouble as it was. She would sigh and give in, but only if they could both stay quiet.

Butch started getting accustomed to the smell of her hair and how she would curl against him as they slept.

Seventeen days elapsed between that first looping broadcast and the vault door sliding open. There was no question in anybody's mind who it was at the door. Still, they hung back in the medical offices they had been contained in. Wasn't safe for any of the rebels to move about.

Tate breezed into their makeshift stronghold, eyes darting back and forth, looking for something or someone. Looked desperate and kind of frazzled. Looked like Nosebleed.

Otherwise he appeared fine, better than Butch expected. Actually, it was just liked he expected, the Wasteland outside wasn't that dangerous and the Overseer was a lying sack of shit. If Tate could handle himself out there, most of the vault residents probably could. Wasn't like Tate was any kind of special snowflake or anything. His hair was too long though, and he had done a shoddy job of trying to dye it, or had been stupid enough to get someone else to bleach it poorly. Lucky all his hair hadn't fallen out.

"Amata!" Dropping his pack on the doorway, he reached for Amata, pulling her into a tight hug against his chest, her head resting just below his chin. "I came as soon as I heard. What's happening?"

"You heard the broadcast, Nosebleed." Butch put his cigarette out and drew attention to himself in the corner of the room. Amata had been on his case about stopping, he wasn't interested though. "Overseer's gone mad with power, the whole vault is in permanent lockdown."

"Butch." Tate released Amata and took a step towards Butch. Butch stepped back. Not here, not in front of her. Not now. The look in Tate's eyes about killed him though, something sad and distant. Maybe he wasn't as fine as Butch initially thought.

Taking Tate's wrists in her hands, Amata described in excruciatingly boring detail just how her dad lost his shit, killed a bunch of them, and confined the rest of them to the clinic. Butch had lived through it, so instead he sat at Dr. Zhang's desk and pulled up old patient records on the terminal he had already read a dozen times through.

There were a few he had read more often than others. Then there was Tate's. A mixture of distant, professional statistics and checkboxes, and private notes of a father's concern, concern no one had ever really shown for Butch.

"...it's not like we want to abandon..."

Speak for yourself, Amata. He hadn't meant to snicker out loud, but neither Amata nor Tate seemed to pay him much mind.

Patient record: Tate Zhang...male...D.O.B. July 13, 2258...5'9"...170 pounds...good health, excellent fitness. Strong agility and endurance scores, sexually active, the checkbox next to 'men' is checked, the one next to 'women' is empty, Help me, but I worry about him so much, doesn't show an interest in his assigned vault occupation...

Butch didn't even have to look at the screen, he got the whole thing memorized. Every cut or scrape and the time he broke Tate's nose and the time he honestly just fell down the stairs because they were a little drunk on pilfered beers and a little drunk on each other. All of this theoretically added up to Tate, but it was a pale imitation of his friend clutching Amata's hands and nodding with that stupid fucked up bleach job.

"Your dad didn't kill Jonas..."

Butch shut off the terminal and lit another cigarette. The minutes stretched by.

"I swear, I'll stop your father and his guards. Just watch."

Amata threw her arms around Tate's shoulders, hugging him, she hadn't looked so happy since...well, Butch didn't really know since when. A long time. Hadn't paid much attention to Amata until recently.

"You will? Thank goodness for that. No matter what I say, he just doesn't listen. He just spends all day up in his office." The concern she had for her father, even now, was apparent. She and Tate had that in common. Assholes for fathers, but fathers all the same.

"Going now, Nosebleed?"

The jerk of Tate's head was a reminder that Butch had just sort of faded into the background. It was alright though, Amata was the type to monopolize time. Besides, Butch was committed to opening the vault just as well as she was.

"In the morning, if that's alright, Amata? I need to figure out a plan."

"Of course," her hand trailed down Tate's arm until she held his hand. "Let me go get a bed ready for you. You must be tired."

Releasing his hand, Amata stepped from the office into the sickbay. Butch knew from experience that the glass muffled voices pretty well. Tate knew that too.

"Butch," he recognized that voice. Kind of demanding and kind of needy and kind of like Tate was about to get his own way. He had a way of convincing people that he was always making the best offer. The hairs on the back of Butch's neck stood up when he heard that voice.

"Not here, she'll see." Without a cigarette between his fingers, Butch started fidgeting with his Toothpick.

Tate nodded and stuck his head into the other room, saying something to Amata. Through the glass, Butch could see her smile and nod. Tate picked up his pack on the way out the door. Butch had a pretty good idea where he went.

While they were technically confined, they did have access to a couple of storage rooms down the hallway adjacent to the clinic. Little by little they were losing ground, but they would fight tooth and nail to keep what they could. One day the whole world would be open.

The door was left slightly ajar, like Butch needed a reminder.

Tate had a fucking smug as shit look on his face, like he fucking knew all along that he could call and Butch would follow.

"Your hair looks like shit."

Damn if that wasn't a nice smile on Tate's lips though. Great lips.

Butch repaid him for everything by punching him square in the jaw. Not too hard though. Hard enough that he'd think twice before running off again.

Tate had thrown on Butch's old Tunnel Snake jacket somewhere between the clinic and the supply room. Seemed kind of a waste since they would probably end up shedding at least some of their clothes anyway. Then again, he looked pretty hot. His lip was swelling up from the impact of Butchs fist and the leather collar popped up framed his face real nice.

"Fuck I missed you, Butch."

They started knocking over things almost immediately. Various odds and ends tossed into unsorted boxes over the last 200 years rattled around as Tate pushed Butch around the room, shoving him in the chest then pulling him close by the front of his jacket. Repeating the process. Butch gave as good as he got, pushing Tate against a shelving unit while pulling down his zipper. Their mouths lost and found each other as their positions permitted.

Suddenly it didn't seem so important that Amata was just yards away, worried and defiant against the Overseer and having Butch's kid in six or seven months or something like that. Didn't bother him much because fucking Tate and his fucking charming mouth, whether he was running it or using it for other functions. If he had never fucking left this wouldn't have happened.

And it was kind of like it hadn't happened because Tate finished pulling down his own zipper when Butch had abruptly stopped. Then there were those hands on Butch's shoulders pressing him down and onto his knees. Tate always got his first. Butch would lose interest after he got off, so this was the compromise. Everything was moving as if nothing had changed. Like they weren't different people even though before they had been dumb kids and now they were dumb kids accustomed to the smell of gunpowder and dead bodies. Maybe Tate had it worse. Butch had no way of knowing. Not yet.

Tate knew better than to mess with the top of Butch's hair, but the short strands at the back had always been fair game. Fingers that were definitely rougher than before danced at the back of his neck as he took Tate into his mouth. The Wastes couldn't be that bad because Tate tasted distinctly like himself and a bit like soap. He purred just the same as he did before and kept his hips still until he was just at his edge. Only then would he jerk forward, short little movements in rapid succession, before he spilled into Butch's mouth. Most of it he swallowed down, but he left enough behind that Tate would taste it.

"Mmm," Tate moaned into his mouth. "You're so good to me." Always a talker. Liked hearing Butch's voice too.

Tate curled his lip and started at Butch's zippers, first his jacket, followed by his suit. His hands slipped under the stiff fabric and across the plane of Butch's abs. "Get on your knees, Nosebleed."

They liked similar things, but not the same. Pushes and punches for one and words...yeah and punches maybe too for the other too. Fuck, maybe they were the same.

"Yeah, Butch."

At first Butch didn't look down at the blond head that perched below him. It might have been too much all at once. Amata didn't do this. Fuck, that was probably part of the current problem they faced.

Butch could feel the heat of Tate's breath, just inches from his cock, rising and falling, breathing, alive.

"Suck."

Didn't have to be told twice, but liked to be told once. Tate's mouth was hot and wet. His tongue moved more frantically than it had before, desperate. Fuck it was good. Still not looking down, Butch's hands drifted into Tate's stupid hair and he grabbed hold of the top of it, pulling him down around him until he choked, just a little, then releasing.

"Fuck, Tate, fuck."

He was already close and he should have been ashamed for it. It wasn't like he wasn't getting off every other night, but this was different and he knew it. But shit like that didn't really matter between him and Tate, never really had. Butch knew why, but he wouldn't admit to it. This was still the shithead who had fucked everything up when he left Butch behind.

Butch started out coming down the back of Tate's throat, and only then did he look down. The blond's head started pulling away until his mouth was available for other uses.

"Yeah, Butch." From the looks of it, Tate had gotten hard again and one hand was working on bringing himself off a second time. "Cum on me."

Well, that wasn't really a request he was in any position to deny since Tate was still pumping him with a closed fist through his orgasm, splashing semen across his nose and lips. By the time Tate was finished with him, Butch was a bit of a mess too, his knees weak and his heart pounding. He collapsed to the floor in slow motion, sitting in front of Tate, who was still working himself. His rumpled vault suit had slid off his shoulders but was stopped by the bulk of his triceps. Tate would want him to talk, but the words were dry in his mouth.

"You look like a slut, Nosebleed."

"Fuck!" Tate shuddered and came in his hand, but from the looks of it, there wasn't much in terms of mess. He wiped his hand against the side of his vault suit, like he didn't have cum running down his face too. Trying to wipe it away, Butch idly wondered if it was weird to be so affectionate.

"Leave it," Tate spoke halfway through the process of getting him cleaned up. A sheer layer still hung from his swollen lip, down the side of his chin. Not totally noticeable unless you were looking closely, unless the light caught it just right.

"You're a pervert."

"You like it." Tate hopped to his feet and gave Butch a hand up. While they zipped up their suits and jackets Tate talked about some fucking mundane shit, like that it was warm outside and that he had seen stars and how he was a much better fighter than basically everyone he had come across, so Butch wouldn't have any trouble either. Even Amata would be fine, she was a real scrappy fighter when she needed to be. Hell on two legs with a 10mm too, better shot than either of them.

"You'll want to pack tonight, I guess. Don't think tomorrow will take too long."

Yes, all along Tate was planning to take Butch with him.

No, Amata.

"I can't get to my room, you'll have to talk to the Overseer first." They were taking too much time. Butch couldn't imagine the excuse that Tate had given to Amata, but whatever it was, it wouldn't account for this much time. "Do you really think you can convince him to open the vault?"

"If I can't, I'll find another way."

Even though they had finished dressing, they lingered.

Tate kissed the corner of Butch's mouth before slipping out the door.

That night, Butch slept upright in Dr. Zhang's office chair.

Tate left the clinic before Butch woke up. There was nothing to do but sit and wait. Amata came and sat half in his lap, ran her delicate fingers through the hair at the back of his neck, asked Butch if he thought everything would be okay. Any answer he could have given would be a lie.

He didn't like her, not really, only he had grown accustomed.

There was only one conflict in Butch's mind, and that was his promise to himself to be a better man than his father was. Only, that meant there was no yardstick by which to judge. For all he knew, it had been a blessing that his dad had fucked right off. With dads like the Overseer and Dr. Zhang, maybe Butch had been the lucky one.

Over the course of the morning, he worked his way through half a pack of cigarettes, they kept Amata away.

When Tate came back, he smelled faintly of gunpowder and Butch knew right then. He gestured towards the sick bay where Amata had gone to lie down. Tate kissed him and touched the side of his face.

Maybe there was a way to do both. Go with Tate and be a good father.

"Tate, you gotta convince Amata to stay in the vault, never leave."

"What? I thought I did this shit to get you guys out?"

"She can open the vault, other people can do whatever the fuck they want. But it's dangerous out there right?"

Tate nodded.

"So this is about her, convince her to stay in the vault. Make some sort of deal with her, okay?"

"Butch...If it's important." Tate looked confused and a little bit flustered.

"It's important. She's gotta be safe."

Not sticking around to hear the impending fight, Butch walked the corridors to his room. He threw things he thought he would need onto the center of his bed, including the materials to dye Tate's hair proper. When he was satisfied with what he had chosen, he pulled up the bed sheet into a makeshift pack. It wasn't much.

Tate would know where to find him, so he sat with his face in his hands on the naked mattress until the blond came for him.

"Let's go." Tate's jaw was firmly set. It looked like maybe Amata had slapped him on the same side that Butch had hit him the night before.

They didn't look at each other as they made their way directly for the exit.

"You could have told me, Butch." There was no mistaking it, Tate was angry. He had every right to be. They could all be angry. They were the ones paying for the sins of their fathers, and their fathers, and theirs...

"Would it have changed anything?" Nervously, Butch played with Toothpick in his pocket. There was still time for Tate to send him away.

"No, I guess it wouldn't have."

Tate fished around in his pack and pulled out a set of glasses with dark lenses. After putting them on his face, he grabbed Butch's hand, lacing their fingers together as the vault door slid open.


	4. Like a Country in Decline (Charon MLW)

Pieces of Ahzrukhal slid down the the opposite wall until they game to rest on the floor with the larger, heavier chunks of him. A halo of blood spray painted the pretty colored bottles of the bar, changing their hue ever so slightly. The ghouls around him were shocked, but not terrified. They had pushed back their seats and prepared to run, but no further violence materialized.

Tate's nails bit into the flesh of his palm in order to keep calm.

"Woah, what the fuck was that?" He only just found his voice again. Seven-hundred-and-fifty caps was all it ended up costing Tate for the ghoul in the window. Someone big and good with ranged weapons. Someone who could stop another Springvale School from ever happening to Tate again.

"Ahzrukhal was an evil bastard. So long as he held my contract, I was honor bound to do as he commanded." Charon pulled a pack of cigarettes from his pocket and lit one casually, as if he hadn't fucking murdered his last owner in cold blood in front of a room of people. "But now you are my employer, which freed me to rid the world of that disgusting rat. And now, for good or ill, I serve you."

"Right, I kind of figured that much out from the contract." Tate ran his fingers through his freshly bleached hair, courtesy of Snowflake. Snowflake was a good guy. Charon, well, he hadn't made up his mind yet on Charon. "So, I guess we'll get going in the morning. I've got to install this satellite dish on top of that tower outside." The dish was strapped to the back of Tate's pack. It was kind of heavy, but he could manage it.

"As you command." Charon nodded his head slightly.

Despite the cloudiness of Charon's eyes, the blue was still downright piercing. Tate couldn't imagine what they had looked like when they were clear, human.

"Shit, well, I guess I better make the best of a bad situation."

Tate slid behind the counter of the Ninth Circle and started by going through Ahzrukhal's pockets. After recovering his 750 caps, Tate got to work on the register. "Er, Charon, you're not going to off me for fleecing this joint, right?"

"You are my employer and I will do as you command."

"Right, okay." He finished up with the register and turned his attention to the safe. The other ghouls in the room seemed a little taken by his brazenness, like they had never seen a guy pick through a still-warm corpse's pockets before. For all their apparently advanced age, these ghouls sure seemed like a bunch of fucking amateurs. Hopefully the same couldn't be said of Charon.

Charon stood quietly in front of the bar while Tate worked pilfering valuable items and a couple of nice bottles of vodka.

"Okay, so, this guy got anything else worth taking?"

"He may, in his bedroom. I do not know for certain."

"Lead the way." Tate vaulted over the bar and landed gracefully on the other side. Damn if that ghoul didn't have a face like stone. He didn't look the least bit impressed.

The door on the other side of the Ninth Circle was locked, but Tate had picked up the key off of Ahzrukhal so it wasn't a problem at all. The room was a little sparse, but tidy with a number of containers that might contain things of value. Tate liked small, high-value things best. Cigarettes were always good to trade, so were chems and rare ammunition. From the looks of it, Charon smoked so he'd hold on to a couple of packs for the guy. He may have been a slave, but that didn't mean he had to be miserable. Yeah, Ahzrukhal had insisted on calling it something like brainwashing, like that somehow absolved Charon from being a slave, but it amounted to the same thing. Tate wasn't too bothered either way. He was sick and tired of doing this bullshit on his own.

Springvale.

No.

Stop.

No.

Please.

Tate shoved a couple of choice items into his pack and Charon just stood and watched, his back against the closed door. Puffed on his cigarette until it burned down to his fingertips. There was no skin there to burn.

Yeah, Charon would do real well. He was cold and good with a gun; he was fucking huge and gave off this crazy aura, like he would do anything. And that anything he would do would be all for Tate. Just had to make sure that he outlived the fucker, because Tate was not going out like Ahzrukhal.

"Charon, you'll do whatever I want, right?"

"The contract entitles you to my services in combat. Physical violence on your part invalidates our contract."

"So you fight for me, if I try to fight you…."

"I get to kill you."

"Awesome." Tate took another look around the room. Initially, he had planned to return to Carol's Place to spend the night, but this room was way more private. He already had all of Ahzrukhal's other shit. Had his caps and his vodka and his jet and his bodyguard, might as well take his bed for the night too. It was already coming up on two in the morning and he wanted a fairly early start to get the dish in place.

Why did his Pop and everyone his Pop ever associated with have to be such fucking assholes? He'd never met his mom, but he'd put caps down that she was a royal bitch too.

"I guess we're spending the night here." Toeing off his boots, Tate sat on the bed and was thankful that it gave a little, but not too much. This would be way more comfortable than the mattresses in abandoned subway stations he had been sleeping on for the last several nights.

"You gonna lie down, Charon?"

The ghoul grunted.

"You're making me nervous. No one will get past the two of us. It's fine, sit down or something."

Another grunt and Charon took a chair across the room. That seemed like the best Tate was going to get out of him.

It was an alright bed, in an alright room, in an alright place. Tate knew the Wastes got a lot worse than this.

Because everything was kind of alright, it was all the more sudden the way fear gripped him in the middle of the night, when he had already been fully asleep and immersed in a dream where he was safe back home below ground. He had been below ground again. That basement at Springvale...

"Charon, you awake?"

"I don't require much sleep."

"Define physical violence on my part." The words hung in the air for several seconds. Tate didn't want to ask, not directly, at least.

"You cannot inflict harm on my person such that it causes me substantial pain."

"And define combat services…."

"You ask too many questions."

"Can I use you for sex?"

The room was dark, Charon must have turned off the light when Tate went to bed. Even if there had been light, Tate wasn't sure Charon would have reacted at all. He was a series of inscrutable poker faces.

"That's not a combat service."

"No, I guess not. But it also doesn't constitute physical violence."

"You're not fucking me."

"That's not what I meant."

That silence again. Tate had a feeling he was about to get used to a bunch of silences where what he had really wanted was chatter to fill up his brain with other things.

"No, I guess it's not physical violence on your part."

Close enough to a yes, Tate supposed.

He got out of bed, carefully, though there was no one to disturb. Force of habit meant that he fell asleep fully dressed and with his sunglasses on. The vault suit was a tricky thing, so he removed it on his own as he stalked towards Charon. If it didn't invalidate the contract, it was fair game, and Tate was a pretty creative guy.

Naked by the time he reached Charon in his chair, Tate didn't hear any further objections, though gunfire and explosions and screams may have dulled his hearing between 101 and this dead man's bedroom. Cloudy eyes that saw too much for their own good stared straight on ahead. If Tate called, Charon had no choice but to answer. That was the beauty of it all.

His hands were steady and sure as he worked open Charon's fly. The ghoul just kept his hands on his thighs through the process, didn't budge one inch. Maybe he didn't like this, didn't like men or Tate or something. But what Charon liked didn't matter, now did it?

Tate always seemed to end up with some beautiful fucking cock; just normally it was attached to a prettier face. Charon wasn't much to look at, but he was huge and muscular and smelled like cigarettes. All those things and he would do whatever Tate asked of him. Too bad he couldn't change his face, or grow some skin. Plus side, being a ghoul did some sexy fucking thing to his voice, and Tate could get behind that.

Pressing his back to Charon's chest and sinking down on his cock seemed best. Couldn't see the guy's face but could feel every fucking inch of him, and there were a lot of inches to admire. This didn't count as physical violence.

"Fuck, Charon. You're so goddamn huge."

"I only do what you command."

"Shit." He had to compose himself before moving. Really, he didn't want to move at all. What he wanted was for Charon to move, to fuck him hard and fast and brutal. For him to do all those things and for Tate to like them. That's what Tate wanted, and that's what Tate could take. Take and take and take and he would never have to give any of himself back.

"Talk to me." Digging his fingers into the mangled muscles of Charon's thighs, he started riding. The guy must have been gorgeous as a human, but that was a long time ago.

"What do you want me to say?"

It wasn't the same if he had to feed Charon lines, he'd have to get creative on his own. Charon wasn't mindless, he knew that well enough, but maybe this was part of the game. It was unclear now who was leading who. "Make me feel bad. I like that."

"How bad?"

"Real bad, Charon. Real bad."

"I'm already planning on killing you." Shit. He followed orders real well. Maybe Tate should have hated himself a little by how hard that made him. Charon's hand came around and held his throat, not squeezing, just holding. His fingertips were awful, foreign things, rough and dry and brittle.

"Keep going." Instead of touching Charon, Tate ran his hands over his own body, touching his own flesh, tracing the definition of his own chest and abdominal muscles. He probably looked fucking great like this, with his legs spread and a huge cock up his ass.

"Did you think those glasses and that ugly hair would hide who you are, you piece of communist shit."

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

Tate stopped moving his hips, he just froze. Where he stopped, Charon began, thrusting his hips up and into Tate painfully far.

"They taught us to spot you, no matter what the disguise. Two-hundred years and I can still tell. I can smell the Red on you, like dog piss."

Long arms held him in place, held him back from bolting. One arm crossed over his chest, the other still at his throat. Charon was strong, really, really strong. Of course he fucking was, that was why Tate bought him, it wasn't like he was going to buy a bodyguard that was weaker than him. That would be stupid.

"Yeah, well, you're the piece of shit slave that's gotta do whatever I tell him. So I don't think you're in any position to talk, solider." The last line was meant as an insult, but this was some fucked up fantasy right here.

"Can't kill you yet, commie scumbag, but I can fucking tear your ass open."

"Yeah, I'd like to see you try." If only this hadn't made him so painfully hard. He really needed to stop thinking with his dick for one fucking day. But then again, this was supposed to be safe. He owned Charon, could do whatever he wanted with him.

Charon pushed Tate out of his lap and onto the floor. Falling to his hands and knees, Tate had a pretty good idea what was coming next, so he braced himself. Charon's cock punctured him again in a single, brutal stroke.

"Been 200 years since I got commie pussy, this one is a little loose though."

Tate's head slammed into the wooden floor as Charon continued. If only it didn't feel so good. If only Tate wasn't such a fucking mess. Then maybe shit like this would stop happening to him. Maybe he would stop seeking out shit like this only to run away in the end.

Rough, dry, brittle hands flipped him over onto his back. The floorboards were surprisingly cool and smooth. The feeling of Charon's hands on his legs wasn't so bad, the way he folded Tate in two. The soft skin of Tate's calves scraped against Charon's chest and shoulders. His legs barely reached, the ghoul was so tall, giant really. This would have been a pretty picture too.

As long as his eyes were closed behind tinted lenses, Tate could paint any picture he wanted.

Trying to keep up with Charon's pace was a tricky thing. The weight of him was so intense against Tate's body. Charon was big and thick and heavy, strangely alive for someone who looked like a corpse.

"Yeah, tell me what a piece of shit I am."

Close, so close and he hadn't even touched himself yet, just The texture of Charon's armor against his cock and the sensation of being full. It could be enough. Fucking sick in a lot of ways, but it could still be enough.

Tate spat in Charon's face as encouragement. The saliva ran down the hollow of where his cheek should have been and dripped back down onto Tate below him.

"You're lucky my contract overrides my desires." Charon's hand pressed over Tate's neck, pushing down and restricting his breathing in staccato punches. Thrust in and out, he could breathe then he couldn't. Not enough to be dangerous, but enough to threaten. Enough to make Tate light headed. "Because I'd skin you alive and see how Red you are on the inside, you commie cunt."

It was enough.

Tate came against Charon's leather armor and over his own bare chest. His fingers dug into the flesh of his own legs as he thrashed under his slave bodyguard's weight. Yeah, so it turned out Charon followed instructions really well.

"Stop." Tate's voice was firm, assertive. The word was a direct command. As soon as the word left Tate's mouth, Charon had no choice but to comply. His milky eyes were still wild with arousal, if not desire. Brainwashed, maybe, but not an appliance Tate could turn on and off. Interesting.

While Charon had stopped thrusting, his cock held still inside of Tate and the strain to hold back was apparent in what remained of his features.

"Get your dick out of me. I'm done."

There was something slightly horrified there, like maybe Charon couldn't control his emotions as well as he had thought. But there wasn't a choice to make and he withdrew, his hands flying to his cock almost as soon as he was exposed.

"No. You can't come."

Tate left Charon on his knees on the wooden floor. He wiped the cum on his chest off the best he could with his undershirt before climbing back into bed. In the darkness, he could hear Charon breathing, heavy and desperate and unmistakably frustrated with his lot in life.

"Have a cigarette or something. It'll make you feel better."

There was no mistaking the sound of the chair smashing against the wall, breaking apart into brittle pieces. Tate didn't bother to see what the fuss was about. He knew now he was safe.


	5. Winter's Cold (Officer Gomez MLW)

It was like the whole world had changed while Tate slept. Well, not really. The Wasteland was still full of shitty people doing shitty things poorly, but now they had water and hope and he thought for a second that maybe it had been all worth it. He couldn't save his Pop and he couldn't save Charon and he had to punch his best friend in the face until he blacked out and locked his other best friend below ground forever, but it was okay.

The Brotherhood of Steel wanted him to take on another fucking mission but he sure as shit wasn't interested. He completed Pop's work even though he didn't know anything about science or medicine or purification shit. All he knew were three numbers that his Pop wouldn't let him forget.

In the time it took for Butch to make the trip from Rivet City back to the Citadel, Tate tried to find a way to apologize. He sincerely hoped he hadn't fucked up Butch's face too bad. When he finally showed up in the doorway of Tate's sickroom, Butch looked out of breath and gorgeous and Tate kissed him until they nearly drowned.

Butch cried, ugly, messy tears streaming down his face. And so did Tate, so neither of them spoke about it again.

On the trip from the Citadel to Megaton, they lost a half-day of travel time messing around in an abandoned shack like it was one of the supply closets back in the vault, like their only worry was security down the hall and not raiders up their asses. Butch tasted better and better every time.

Megaton was still a shithole, so there was that. Only now it was a shithole with clean water running through the taps. Still, it wasn't the Citadel so it held some appeal.

Butch took Tate's heavy pack and headed up to Gob's to get them a room. He had been fussing over Tate since he woke up and the blond was a little unsure if he was supposed to be flattered or insulted.

With just his light pack around his hips, Tate headed for the Brass Lantern to see if they had any cigarettes. If Butch could fuss so could Tate.

"Didn't think you were the type to take up the habit, Tate."

Whipping his head around, Tate caught sight of the source of the voice, Officer Gomez. Yeah, right, Amata had decided to open the vault. That was months ago now. She would have ...didn't matter, Tate was exiled and probably deserved it too for the stunts he pulled.

"They're not for me." He tossed the pack into his light bag. "What are you doing out here?" Officer Gomez hadn't struck him as the adventuring type.

Officer Gomez pulled out the seat next to him at the bar as an obvious invitation for Tate to sit next to him. Having no where else to be at the moment, he took the seat. Butch would come after him if he needed anything. Being around someone else from the vault was more unnerving than Tate was expecting, but Officer Gomez had never hated him too much.

"We're looking into moving the vault residents out, at least to handle resources better. We heard what you did at the purifier, and I volunteered to go investigate. By my reckoning it doesn't look too bad."

Tate nodded and gestured for Jenny to bring him a beer.

"Yeah, I dunno. I guess you guys gotta make that decision. Amata is real smart though. Just give her the evidence and she'll make the right choice."

Tate couldn't help but think he had fucked up so badly after leaving the vault because he didn't have Amata keeping his ass out of trouble.

Beer didn't taste quite the same now as it had before. Strange, the things that were different before and after taking a massive, supposedly fatal rad dose. Still, he finished it anyway in a couple of long gulps. Faster it went down, less he had to taste it.

"The people here seem real nice," Officer Gomez's posture suggested he was a little tipsy and a lot relaxed in Tate's presence. "I disarmed that bomb at the center of town. The one those weirdos worship. In return they gave me this house. Hell of a thing. Tried to turn it down, but that sheriff wouldn't let me. Oh, Butch!"

"Officer Gomez."

While there wasn't a ton of strain back in the vault between Tate and Officer Gomez, the same couldn't be said about Butch. The brunet didn't have the luxury of Amata to keep him out of the worst of it. It was blatant favoritism really. Run around with the Overseer's daughter and people think better of you.

Butch had come up behind Tate's seat, putting one hand on either side of the backrest and leaning forward slightly. It was a protective gesture, like he didn't trust Officer Gomez.

"You look good, Butch. When I heard you left I assumed the worst. Hey, why don't we head over there." Officer Gomez sat up a little straighter, "I mean to the house. It'll be more comfortable than these chairs, no offense, Jenny."

"What?" Jenny called from across the bar. She hadn't heard.

The angle Butch adopted meant his chest rubbed just against The back of Tate's head.

"I guess so, you don't mind, do you Butch?" It was a courtesy, asking Butch like this. Even if he said no, Tate would still go if it pleased him.

The three followed the ramps up to the house that Officer Gomez had been gifted.

"They asked me to disarm that thing too. But I couldn't figure it out." From the higher ground Tate had a better view of the giant, lifeless bomb. He left out the part about being offered the opportunity to detonate it too.

"Wasn't easy, but I figured I'd give it a shot." Officer Gomez turned the key and the door swung open. He let Butch and Tate enter first.

"Ah! My good Sir, you have returned!" Robots, why did it always have to be robots?

"Hey, Wadsworth. This is Tate and Butch, they're friends of mine, so treat them nice, okay?"

Officer Gomez started shrugging off his armored vest and the two younger men sat side by side on the couch, just a sliver of space between them. Enough that it looked proper.

"Hey, Officer Gomez," Tate eyed Wadsworth suspiciously. "This robot, it doesn't have any security features, does it?"

"Far as I can tell it's the same as the Mr. Handy units in the vault. I'm no expert though."

Tate stared at the thing until it stared back. Slowly, cautiously, he lifted up his sunglasses. When the robot didn't react and just whirred in place, he exhaled and took the glasses off, tucking them in the front of his vault suit.

"So, you boys want something to drink?"

"Beer's fine," Butch mumbled.

"Two." Tate remembered the cigarettes for Butch and pulled them from his bag, passing them over.

Officer Gomez returned from the other room with three beers, setting them on the table and sitting across from the other two. "Please not inside, Butch."

Tate didn't miss the edge to Officer Gomez's voice. Clearly he was the guest here and Butch was the auxiliary. Buy one vault delinquent get one free!

As soon as he had said it, Officer Gomez was all smiles again. "I still indulge myself, now and again. But I'm not planning on keeping the house for myself. I'm going to give it to Freddie."

The house was nice, real nice. From what Tate could see, it wasn't much different from Simms's or Burke's. Those were the only private homes he had been in other than Moira's, which was obviously significantly bigger because it had the store attached. There was a workbench in the corner and what looked like bedrooms upstairs. Yeah, nice was the way to describe it.

"Didn't think Freddie would want to leave the vault." Tate reclined on the couch, his knees bumping into the coffee table. He'd slide off if he wasn't careful.

"Nah, he's got to get out. He's got VDS." How Butch knew that, Tate wasn't entirely sure. Maybe he had confided in Butch, but like the rest of them, Freddie wasn't really the sharing type. Tate didn't miss the concerned look on Officer Gomez's face.

"Well he's doing very well nowadays. I guess you wouldn't know," He perked up. I'm a grandad!" Well shit, Officer Gomez looked pretty fucking proud of himself for that one. "They're a bit young and all, and I didn't even know he was with Amata until she was already a ways along..."

Shit. Shit. Fuck. Shit. No. No. No.

Shit.

Butch had tensed up beside him.

"Oh, don't be so judgmental, boys. I know Amata and you were close, Tate, but you know Freddie will be good to her."

"So wait, when you say you're going to give the house to Freddie." The waver in Butch's voice would only be noticeable to the attuned.

"I figure now that there's clean water on the surface, it would be nice for them to raise little Clara above ground. Of course, it's so close to the vault, they'll have the option."

Fuck, fuck, this would ruin everything. Tate promised Butch. It was a shitty promise, making Amata stay in the vault. But he got the reasoning. He could fix this. He could fix this.

"You boys staying in town tonight? Yes? good, why don't I get you another beer and I'm sure what you've been up to is more interesting than what I've got to offer." He stood, taking their empty bottles with him.

"Butch," Tate grabbed his friend's arm and squeezed. "I'll fix this."

Butch's blue eyes got wide but there was no time to respond, Officer Gomez was already back.

"Hey, Officer, mind showing me around the place? I've actually not seen the inside of these houses before, just the bars and stuff."

"Sure, sure is different than the vault, eh? But I suppose you've seen lots of places."

Tate took his beer in his hand and followed Officer Gomez to see the kitchen first. Butch remained rooted on the couch, turned away from the both of them. What was going through his mind, Tate could only imagine. It wasn't like Butch was in love with Amata or anything, but yeah, probably was a real shitty way to hear the good news that your kid was safe, but might end up a whole lot less safe. Probably never expected to hear anything about his kid when Tate made that decision for him and freed him from the vault. Nah, Freddie would be a good dad, a good dad underground in the goddamn safe as hell vault.

"Why don't you show me upstairs, Officer Gomez?"

Having to come up with a plan super quick wasn't exactly playing to Tate's strengths. Punching Officer Gomez in the face wasn't going to cut it. Besides, he had seen the security officer in action a year ago when he bolted from the vault in the first place. Above average accuracy, but really fucking quick on the draw. Not stronger than him or Butch though. They could probably scare him pretty well. But no, they couldn't be implicated in this. It would get back to Amata and she would be fucking disappointed in the both of them.

Tate settled on drugging Officer Gomez, yeah, that would do it. Get him knocked out then they would leave him safely locked up in a shack or something. Already being drunk, he'd probably forget what happened and stumble back to the vault a little more cautious. Amata would freak out and just stay in her goddamn hole. This was a great plan.

There was Med-X in his light pack that he had intended to use as trade. Shit was as good as caps. Like, five or six should do the trick. Just had to get Gomez to let his guard down. If he shoved it into his leg real quick he'd be out before he knew what hit him. He'd seen his Pop inject Med-X into people's legs before, left them all loopy.

Officer Gomez led the way upstairs. Tate purposefully avoided looking at Butch. Whatever expression he wore, Tate didn't want to deal with it right now. It was probably some shade of pissed off, although about what, well, there were a lot of things to be upset about.

The bedroom was small and tidy and had a door. Good. That would keep the robot from seeing. Mr. Handys might not have been for combat, but he would still try to defend his master if he got wind of what was happening.

"Herman..."

Officer Gomez looked taken aback when Tate closed the door behind them.

"I lied, I didn't want a tour of the house." Tate took the tab of Gomez's vault suit between his fingers and played with it, but didn't pull, not yet.

"Tate, what are you doing?"

"You've always been so good to me, Herman."

Officer Gomez was tall, tall enough that Tate had to rise up on the balls of his feet to press a first, deceptively innocent kiss to the side of his mouth. The way Gomez responded betrayed his drunkenness. Wobbly on his feet and more receptive to Tate's advances than he should have been. Maybe Pepper hadn't been putting out.

"Let me be good to you now, okay?" Still feigning innocence, Tate bit his bottom lip as he slowly worked the zipper of Gomez's suit. He had to be the aggressor, but not aggressive. If he came on too strong it would raise red flags.

He could hear Butch's footsteps on the stairs, but he didn't open the door.

When the zipper reached Gomez's navel, Tate dropped to his knees in front of the older man, pressing his hands on his stomach but venturing no lower. Dance carefully.

"I wanna, so bad...but you have to show me what you like."

"What's wrong with you, Tate?" From the way Gomez's breath rose and fell through his chest, Tate could feel the palpitations of his conflict. Half the battle was knowing your position and exploiting it. Tate knew this, knew what buttons to press to make enemies falter.

"This is wrong, isn't it? Wanting you. Can't help it." He let his breath settle on Gomez's abdomen. "I wanna know what it's like." He finished pulling down the zipper.

When Gomez's hands ended up in his hair, Tate knew he was drunk enough or stupid enough to buy into Tate's act. Still had to get him out of the vault suit though.

Tate's hands dipped into Gomez's underwear, freeing his cock to the cool air of the Megaton home. He was only half hard, but that would be enough to get started on. This was shit he was good at. And he fucking enjoyed it too. Even though this was mostly a business transaction, Tate couldn't help but harden at the sight.

Feigning inexperience, Tate took the barest tip of Gomez's cock into his mouth, running his tongue over the head and then withdrawing before looking up and trying to catch the security officer's eyes. He approached again, this time throating a more significant fraction, choking a little, then pulling off. Gomez groaned and thrust forward, chasing Tate's mouth.

There had to be a faster way to get Gomez out of his suit, though Tate was kind of enjoying himself. Standing, Tate pulled down his own zipper and ripped his arms out of his sleeves as fast as he could before crashing his mouth into Gomez's. The older man responded rapidly, wrapping his arms around Tate's waist and kissing back fervently.

"Mmm, Freddie."

Shit, weird, fucking weird. Why the fuck was everyone's fathers so fucked up? Fuck.

Roll with it.

"Daddy," Tate gasped in between wet, open mouthed kisses. "Take me to bed, Daddy."

Gomez grabbed hold of Tate's thighs and wrapped them around his torso before carrying him to bed, their lips locked together the whole time. One of Gomez's hands tangled in the hair at the back of Tate's neck.

Now that Tate was safely deposited in the bed, Gomez ground their hips together through the fabric of Tate's jumpsuit. His cock was fully hard now and pressing against Tate's groin, but he still hadn't taken off the damn jumpsuit. Gomez's hand slipped between their bodies and started rubbing against Tate's erection. Well, clearly handjobs weren't in Gomez's skill set.

"Daddy, wanna see you, please." Tate managed to pull the jumpsuit off of Gomez's shoulders, but couldn't get the arms off while he was supporting himself over Tate's body.

Gomez groaned and shifted his weight so he knelt between Tate's thighs. He'd have to stand to get the legs off. Tate's light pack was still strapped at his hip. He danced his fingertips over Gomez's chest as a sign of encouragement. Come on, old man, all the way.

"Freddie, we shouldn't..." Gomez's resolve was wavering. Or maybe it wasn't. Sicko here still called him by his son's name.

Tate pulled himself up onto his elbows and caught Gomez's eyes. He could do this, he was good at this. "But I've been a good boy, haven't I?"

That broke Gomez. He was on his feet and stripping off his vault suit. Tate undressed in bed as well, covertly slipping out the first syringe in the process and hiding it in his palm. The pack with the rest of the Med-X was pushed to the ground along with his vault suit, the zipper on the pouch still open for access.

Gomez slotted his naked hips between Tate's legs and that was all Tate needed. A flick of his finger uncapped the needle and with Gomez drunkenly rubbing his cock against the curve of his ass, Tate stabbed him hard in the side of his ass and depressed the syringe.

"Fuck!" Gomez was more shocked than anything else.

Tate rolled onto his side best he could given his hips we're locked around Gomez's and grabbed another syringe, emptying that one as well.

Two doses of Med-X had dulled Gomez's reaction times, that was for sure. Another second and the security officer started falling forward onto Tate. Instead, Tate pushed him backwards off the bed and he landed on the floor with a thud and a dull groan. Scrambling, Tate got three more doses in his fist and stabbed Gomez with all of them at once, pounding down the tops with his opposite palm. Quiet now, Tate was satisfied that he had knocked Gomez out for a good long while.

Tate opened the bedroom door and Butch was on the other side, leaning against the railing.

"What were you even doing?" Butch was pissed, but that was nothing new. He was always pissed when Tate fucked around with other guys, even when it was for Butch's sake.

"I knocked him out with a bunch of Med-X, figured we could stick him in some shack or something, he wakes up, sacred, not remembering anything, tells Amata it's way too dangerous out here. Problem solved."

"Why are you naked?"

Tate looked down, right, naked. "Had to get him out of his clothes to stab him with the Med-X. Couldn't be like 'hey officer, roll up your sleeve so I can drug you, kay? Thanks a bunch!'"

"I never know if you're a genius or an idiot, Tate."

"Yeah, neither do I. Guess I better get dressed. We gotta find a way to carry him out of here unnoticed." Tate turned back into the room to get his jumpsuit; Butch took the opportunity to slap his ass.

"I'll go find a way to turn off that robot. Might get hostile if it sees its master carried out like a sack of potatoes."

Butch headed downstairs while Tate got dressed. Once he was decent, he checked Gomez's pockets for the house keys. He wouldn't be needing them anymore and it would be a shame for the house to remain unoccupied. It was nice.

"Okay, robot problem solved. And it's pretty dark outside. It's as good of a chance we're gonna get."

Tate started pulling the sheets off the bed to wrap Gomez in. They would have to look out for Simms and other residents, but with some careful timing, they'd be able to make it outside the settlement walls.

"Nosebleed...how much Med-X did you shoot him with?"

"Dunno, like six?"

"...He's dead."

"Fuck no." Tate dropped the bundled bed sheets and they floated to the floor like a deflating cloud.

"Yeah, I'm pretty sure you killed him."

Well, it hadn't been intentional, so there was that. Butch sat on the floor next to Gomez's corpse and lit a cigarette.

"Well, he did call me Freddie when he thought he was gonna fuck me."

"Too much information, Nosebleed." Butch scowled at the body, kicking it lightly with his outstretched foot. They still had to get it out of here. "What is it with you and killing people's dads?"

"Dunno, worried you might be next?" Tate smirked.

Butch laughed, but it was a bitter one.


	6. Richer than Croesus (Butch MLW)

Tate finished his power armor training earlier in the day. That meant the inevitable. Tomorrow would be the assault on the purifier. Butch had to force himself to breathe.

The Brotherhood hadn't offered the training to Butch. That was alright though, Tate had always been the golden child. Wasn't entirely clear why. Maybe because the whole world was so eager to kiss Dr. Zhang's ass, they just assumed his spawn was hot shit too. Good riddance to that old man.

For all the preparations to be made for tomorrow's attack, their room in the Citadel was quiet, almost peaceful. Butch sat up on the bed, his back against the wall and Tate seated between his legs, his back pressed against Butch's chest. Tate read from Future Weapons Today, though no one had ever seen him even look at an energy weapon before. They had bleached his hair before his training in one of the heavy steel utility sinks and it still smelled like chemicals.

While Tate read, Butch thought about Tate's hair.

"If you die tomorrow, I'll have to kill you."

Tate snickered, but didn't turn his head. "We really gonna do this? Act like this is our last night on earth? I got this, Butch."

Butch let his hands dance along Tate's sides, he had never been ticklish.

"You should see me in the power armor," Tate's voice was downright giddy. "I can punch clear through concrete walls. It's killer."

"Yeah, you'll be pretty safe in there. Guess you hadn't considered my safety, eh?"

"Like a legion of Enclave fucks could lay a finger on you, Serpent King of the Mighty Tunnel Snakes."

"Mmmh," Butch's hands moved from Tate's sides to sliding up the hem of his tshirt, running his fingers along his best friend's defined abdominal muscles.

"Butch..." That wasn't a tone Butch was used to hearing, something kind of sad but kind of stern. "Don't, not tonight."

"The fuck? Tate Zhang, King of thinking with his Tunnel Snake and nothing else, doesn't want to fuck? Who the hell are you and where is my best friend?"

"I'm serious." Tate pulled away from him and turned so he was facing Butch. The warm area of Butch's chest cooled rapidly.

"Nosebleed, you wanted to fuck like...five minutes after Charon died...in front of his goddamn corpse. You are always horny. Or that time at Paradise Falls."

"Not two of my finer moments, I guess. And you weren't even there for Paradise Falls. But I mean it. It would be like, jinxing it."

"Sex would be jinxing it?" Butch rubbed the back of his neck and willed his breath to steady.

"Then one of us will be sure to die. Nah, we wait until after and then I fuck the shit out of you, then you can fuck the shit out of me, it'll be great. Then we can kill some raiders or something. Or play grenadeball."

"A second ago you were convinced that we weren't gonna die."

"We're not, just stick to the plan and keep it in your pants."

There was a knock at the door.

"Yeah, if I don't give it to you, you'll jump some Brotherhood hack in the hallway..."

Tate had clamored out of bed and grabbed his sunglasses off the dresser before getting the door. It was Sarah Lyons, the Sentinel leading Tate into battle tomorrow with that giant ass robot. Tate hated robots, but he had no choice but to agree to this one.

Out of her power armor, Butch got a better idea of how stacked Lyons was. The answer was really fucking stacked. Muscular arms, flat stomach, nice tits, and that ass. If Tate had ever shown half a cap's worth of interest in women, Butch might have been threatened by how much time they spent together over the last couple weeks.

"Hey, Tate, we could use you for a minute." There was the barest hint of flirtation, Butch was sure of it.

"Hey, Sarah!" Butch smirked and waved from his position on the bed.

"Butch," she acknowledged him with a curt nod.

Tate was already reaching for his boots. "Yeah I'll be right there. Don't wait up for me, okay?"

Butch waved them both off dismissively.

With Tate gone and only half an erection to keep him company, Butch thought about what color Lyon's nipples might be, before and after being bitten.

Tate had been right. With that fucking giant robot they cut through the Enclave like a knife through butter. All the while its booming voice yelled about Commies and Democracy; failure and success; Reds and the American Way; the Chinese and the liberation of Alaska. To his credit, the only time Tate flinched was back at the Citadel.

"Mission: Destruction of any and all Chinese Communists."

Didn't matter that the robot had been programmed to recognize Enclave soldiers as the communists. Didn't matter that Tate only had the faintest idea what communist meant, let alone what it took to be one. That shit was ancient history. Only thing that had mattered was those two words kept getting bound up together. Chinese. Communist. So Tate flinched and Butch pretended like he didn't see it.

Tate was right about Butch too. Without power armor training, he was forced to hang back behind the Brotherhood Knights, but it turned out he wasn't half bad with the laser rifle that had been shoved in his face on the way out. It cut sharply through the air and made a cool sound and sometimes it turned fully armored Enclave soldiers into piles of sweet-smelling ash.

When the Enclave stealth troops broke into the line, Butch danced around them with his powerfist ready, as skillful as could be expected of him. He pulled them out of stealth kicking and screaming and one of the Brotherhood would ash them in his hands before they could even get real loud. Powder turned his hands iridescent white. The whole thing was fucking awesome.

The Memorial was breached and Butch pushed on ahead to catch up to Tate and Lyons. It was impossible to tell anyone apart in that fucking power armor, but even if he didn't know who they were, they sure as shit recognized him and the metal sea parted. They were still making mincemeat of the Enclave, but he had to reach Tate.

Two suits of armor were standing in front of a secured door, just about the same height, had to be them.

"Tate!"

One of the helmets turned. "Butch?" Tate's voice was mechanic and staticy through the helmet, but unmistakably him.

"You thought you could just leave me, Nosebleed?"

"Yeah, guess I did, dickface." No distortion in the world could have hidden Tate's glee.

Lyons sighed through her helmet. "Let's go."

On the other side of the door was some fuckwad in a trench coat and two more Enclave soldiers. Should've been easy to take them out, as far as they had come. Trench guy was, well, in a fucking trench coat with some lame ass pistol. Lyons and Tate were fucking badasses so the two Enclave in the tesla armor shouldn't have been any trouble either. But Tate, that shit, took of his helmet and instead of shooting started talking to the guy.

"Eden betrayed you. See this vial?" Tate's voice had that venomous quality to it, like the way he used to talk to his dad back in the vault. Like the way he talked to Harkness back in Rivet City or how he talked to Butch after getting those notes off of merc's bodies that he never let Butch see. "He trusts me more than he trusts you."

"That's not true! That plan was abandoned months ago." Trench coat guy was getting real nervous real fast, like someone important had betrayed him. "He'd never go behind my back!"

"Just walk away, Autumn. It's not too late." As quickly as it had surfaced, the venom was gone again.

"And you...would just let me leave?"

Tate nodded, but Butch knew the only promises Tate ever kept were the ones to him and to Amata.

"How can I be sure that you won't just shoot me once I turn my back on you?"

"I won't."

Butch caught the corner of Tate's eye. He was ready, they could only hope Lyons was ready too.

"I suppose it doesn't matter much now...fine. I will leave you to your fate."

Autumn passed Tate and Tate took his head clear off with a single punch. He wasn't kidding about that armor. Well, Tate hadn't lied, hadn't shot him.

Turned out the Encalve goons were too chicken shit for their own good and just made a break for the door. Lyons got one of them good in the leg. So good, that the leg burned right off. Out of mercy she finished him off. The second one still had a wall of Brotherhood on the other side of the door to contend with.

"He killed my Pop." Tate was staring down at the headless corpse. Whatever that vial was, Tate dropped it in the middle of Autumn's chest and smashed it with his foot. The strength of the armor meant that he broke all of the corpse's ribs too. Snap, just like that.

As if in some kind of trance, Tate started pulling off his power armor. "I hate this shit..."

Sarah removed just her helmet and put one hand over her face. This was it, they had done it. Tate was right, they lived.

Then there was Dr. Li's voice over the intercom, worried but collected.

Butch refused to believe it. The pressure in the control room was too high and the systems were cut off. The process of starting the purifier, a process they expected to take their time on and figure out, had to be done now or the whole building would go up. All of this would be for nothing.

Tate screamed back at her, that this was somehow her fault. Her voice cut back just as sharp, that he really was his parents' child, selfish. The intercom didn't stand a chance, Tate smashed against it with his bare fists until they were bloody and raw, but in the end, he rendered the intercom inoperable.

"It has to be now," was the last clear message they got from Dr. Li. Lyons hadn't moved an inch, letting Tate wear himself out.

"Tate, one of us has to do it." She spoke like the commander she was.

"I'll do it," Tate's breathing was still ragged, but the words were clear enough.

"No fucking way, Nosebleed. You said we're getting out of here alive and I know that fucking shit is killing whoever goes in. So no. No fucking way, you ain't doing it."

"Shut the fuck up, Butch. We don't have time."

Tate looked reridiculousn his tshirt and ratty jeans, about to save the whole goddamn Wasteland like a punk. No shoes either.

He had promised. And he didn't fucking break his promises to Butch or Amata. Those were the only damn promises he kept.

"You idiot, fuck you."

Butch grabbed Tate by the back of his head and pulled him forward until their teeth smashed together. Lips came later I'm the suddenness of it all. This beautiful, violent world that everyone expected Tate to save for some reason or another. Fuck them. Butch never could figure it out. Maybe only because Tate was beautiful and violent too.

"Can't let you, Tate, love you too much."

Grabbing Tate by the front of his shirt, Butch smashed him as hard as he could against the nearest console. With the wind knocked out of him, Tate paused just long enough for Butch to make a dash for the purifier. He took the stairs two at a time and could hear Tate already on his heels.

Tackled from behind, Butch's face smashed into the metal grating. Quicker than he could have anticipated, Tate flipped him over and struck him in the face. Again. And again.

"You don't know the code, dickhead."

And black.

If the world had been merciful, Butch would have stayed blacked out until long after they had pulled Tate's body from the control chamber. Instead, he was only unconscious for thirty seconds at most. He watched Tate double over from radiation sickness as he tried to get the code in before it was too late. Watched blood run from his nostrils like water from a tap. Watched him vomit all over the console just seconds after the purifier roared to life. Watched him collapse in a heap and stop moving too. Had to watch it all, couldn't tear his eyes away.


	7. Praise You Wanted (Charon MLW)

"I want her."

"What's this, Smoothskin?" Charon had gone through three cigarettes in the last twenty minutes, burning them down hard and fast while Tate talked to Eulogy Jones. The kid had seemed calm and collected inside the slaver's 'pad.' He sure knew how to talk business with Eulogy. But now that they were back outside Tate was a jumpy, kinetic mess. He kept tugging on the straps on his backpack, drawing it closer and closer to his body.

"I want that girl, the blonde one." Tate's eyes darted back and forth underneath his sunglasses. At first the kid's constant habit of wearing sunglasses struck Charon as just fucking stupid. Now, well, it was still fucking stupid and it wasn't like Tate could hide his emotions underneath them particularly well. Not at close range, at least.

"You mean the other…" Charon started.

"Shut up. Don't say it you bigot."

Charon smiled and sucked on his cigarette. The two of them hadn't started on the best of terms, but the kid was just a little fucked in the head. He wasn't actually an evil bastard. Not like he'd ever speak a word of good aloud about his employer, only that he'd seen much worse in his time. Tate was harmless.

"You wouldn't know the first thing about a woman like that. Do you even know anything about women?" Charon mussed Tate's hair. He fucking hated that, but it was his fault for being so much shorter. Didn't they feed vaulties?

"I don't want to fuck her. I want to get her out of here."

Tate leaned against the building and threw his head back, looking up into the Wasteland sun. Undoubtedly he was concocting some half-assed plan that Charon would have no choice but to follow. It was just so troublesome, always having to save Tate's ass when he decided on what he was doing. If he wasn't asked, Charon couldn't offer an opinion really, so he'd just have to do his best. Hell of a contract that allowed for sarcastic quips but not tactical advice. Probably never occurred to anyone that his contract would end up in the hands of imbeciles instead of decorated war heroes.

"Eulogy wouldn't let me buy her. Said I wasn't her type. Who do you think her type is?"

Of all the goddamn questions, this was the one Tate landed on?

"She likes Eulogy?" Charon shrugged. He needed a new pack of smokes. Tate picked up on that and grabbed a box from his pack, tossing them over. Kid was at least good for something.

"So, evil fuckers, got it." Tate pushed himself off the wall and jumped nearly five feet towards Charon from a standstill. Had to give the kid credit for his aerobatics, just it wasn't a particularly useful skill. "Come on, Charon, lets do some evil shit."

This fucking kid.

As if Charon needed more proof that Tate was somehow cosmically balanced to not be 'an evil fucker,' their week-long romp trying to cause as much mayhem as possible was the icing on the fucking cake.

He used the Mesmetron on a lone raider they found injured and delirious by the side of the road. While the raider was knocked out, Tate tended to her wounds rather than put the collar on her. When she started coming back around, he realized his error, shot off the Mesmetron again in a panic, and accidentally killed her. It was sickeningly hilarious.

They lit three dilapidated homes on fire, watching them burn to ash as the night progressed. The light from the fires blotted out the stars and they ate a meal of canned beans while Tate talked about his father with a mix of hatred and admiration. In the morning, when the flames had gone out, there were no bones, no sign of inhabitants. They had just wrecked three abandoned shacks. Probably did the Wasteland a favor by removing an eyesore.

One more try with the Mesmetron. A struggling trader with a sickly Brahmin and only a half-pack of wares. Tate's aim was terrible and he shot the Brahmin instead, the poor girl collapsing to the ground from exhaustion and dozing peacefully. She snorted in her sleep. Probably the first rest she had gotten in a long time. Tate pulled his knife on the trader and he tossed his pack at Charon before running, screaming the whole time about zombies and crazy ass kids and the caps not being worth it.

They sat with the Brahmin until she woke up and wandered off. Charon remembered the gentle sweetness of cows before mutation. Cows and him both.

Tate became more frustrated as the week wore on, so it didn't strike Charon as odd when he suddenly declared they were heading back to Paradise Falls. They would just take the blonde woman by force. That was what evil fucker did, right?

Like hell Charon was going to dissuade Tate from that plan, even if he had been able to object. Tearing through a shit ton of slavers in their own home sounded like a dream job.

Charon really needed to prioritize teaching Tate to shoot straight. Kid claimed that the grew up practicing with a BB gun back in the vault. But from the way he handled a 10mm it was pretty clear that practicing and becoming proficient were two different matters.

In the end, kid tossed the pistol and got up in the slavers' faces. He aimed for the face and hit hard and fast, darting in between flying bullets and forcing Charon to aim around him. They were getting pretty good at paired combat, Tate rushing in close and throwing someone off guard while Charon finished them off with an assault rifle Tate had bought for him. Fighting like this, Charon couldn't use the shotgun that he preferred, Tate would have ended up full of buckshot no matter how good Charon's aim.

Watching Tate fight was like watching an intricate dance. Charon could admit that much. But not aloud.

They cleared through the slavers who milled about outside as quickly and as violently as they could. Blood seeped down the front of Tate's vault suit in thick, wet patches. At least some of the blood was his, streaming out of his nose and down his chin and neck. He used the butt of Charon's shotgun to bash in the lock and release the pened slaves. He told them to get the fuck out before he shot them himself. In the haze of bloodlust, Charon believed that Tate would do it too.

"Let's go, Charon, she's inside." Tate pulled his knife from his belt as he approached the entrance to Eulogy's living quarters. "You need to protect her, okay? I'll take care of the other two. Just make sure nothing happens to Clover." Command.

This was madness, this idea that Tate got into his head that he had to save this one particular slave. The craziest of all slaves. Far as he could tell from their brief meeting, this Clover girl was fucking nuts. And he used to think that his creators had done a number on him. Whoever had brainwashed this girl had done a much more thorough job, and their intentions hadn't been quite as benign. Charon was just supposed to be the ultimate bodyguard, a super solider who didn't question orders. But he was still a person. This Clover, she was something different.

"Of course, Smoothskin."

Tate threw open the door and bolted as fast as he could towards Eulogy. The slaver had been ready for them, presumably the noise outside had be a hell of a clue that trouble was incoming.

The bullet from Eulogy's .44 only grazed Tate's side. Charon stuck to his orders and located the girl, falling on top of her and pinning her to the ground. She screamed like a fucking banshee underneath him, clawing and screaming and spitting fiercely. So now, maybe, he understood what Tate saw in the woman. She was an asshole just like him.

"GET THE FUCK OFF OF ME YOU PIECE OF ZOMBIE TRASH." In a desperate attack, she bit the side of Charon's face and pulled. When the flesh gave way a little bit, she released him and started retching.

From his place on the floor, Charon couldn't make out what Tate was doing, only that he was yelling things that weren't words and that Eulogy was definitely not getting the better of him. There was that second slave though. Where the fuck was she?

"CRIMSON, CRIMSON HELP ME YOU FUCKING CUNT." Clover barely got the words out between heaving. Fucking woman was acting like she never had 220 pounds of ghoul on top of her. And he fucking knew that one was a lie, because slavers didn't care who the caps came from as long as they were genuine.

Clumsy footsteps behind him gave away Crimson's position. Tate hadn't said a thing about protecting the other one, only the blonde. Crimson had a sword raised above her head, ready to strike with an exaggerated, amateur blow. Charon kicked her square in the stomach, sending her crumpling to the ground a few feet away. He released Clover and grabbed hold of the sword, running Crimson through the neck and pinning her to the ground. Pressure forced blood through the wound, spraying around her neck and onto the floor. Charon made sure she died because he was not cruel.

When he turned back to assess Clover, she had a shotgun in her hands and she was ready to pull the trigger. He had to react fast.

But Tate was faster, crashing into Clover and knocking her to the ground. The shotgun spun away from her and she started screaming again. Tate had her pinned well and put his hand over her mouth.

"Listen! Listen, we're here to save you, okay? I'll take your collar off and you can be free. Do whatever you want. You can come with us, but you don't have to yeah?" Tate made a pained noise, "stop biting me already, that fucking hurts."

Through the whole thing she thrashed underneath him, not for a moment giving up the fight. This wasn't going to end well, Charon could see that already.

Tate moved his hand and the screaming started up again. "You killed him! You killed Daddy you piece of trash. I'd rather die than go with you!"

Tate visibly winced.

"It's okay, you don't have to come with us. Let me just unhook your collar, okay? I have the key." Tate's voice was soft and uncharacteristically caring. Or maybe it just sounded that way against Clover's venom.

Tate laughed as he worked the lock on the collar. "Funny, I thought you would go for the badass who killed your captor. Thought chicks were into that."

Charon held back his comments on the topic. Tate was already itching for some sort of dramatic emotional episode. He was rapidly becoming predictable in his unpredictability.

Clover screamed through the whole process. Once the collar was removed, Tate knew well enough to back off quickly, rolling off of her and jumping to his feet. He held his hands out, as if he was trying to coax a scared animal out of hiding. "It's okay, you're free now."

Clover's chest heaved as she tried to catch her breath, her breasts rising and falling under her dingy pink dress. Here it came. Charon kept the assault rifle firmly in his grip. How she had the vocal cords left to scream was beyond Charon.

The scream was wordless, but her intent was clear, she went for the shotgun and trained it on Tate, she was clumsy and clearly injured. Charon tried to raise his weapon, but the tingling in the back of his skull prevented his body from complying. The previous order to protect her was still in place. But she was clearly a threat to the kid, right? That should have overridden everything else. Fuck. If she killed the kid, she'd be the one to end up with his contract. A true psychopath leading him around instead of a dumbass brat. Fuck, he'd much rather have Tate.

Tate wasn't an idiot. Well, he was an idiot, but one with a clear sense of self-preservation. When Clover swung the shotgun in his direction, he pulled what looked like Eulogy's .44. Now, if only the kid could hit a target right in front of his face.

"Clover…" Tate sounded...sad. Like when he talked about the vault, or Amata and Butch, or his father.

She screamed again. The .44 sang. She crumpled to the floor, her dress billowing up like a parachute. For once Tate had managed to hit something. Charon couldn't see Tate's eyes, too much distance, but if he could, it was sure not to be good.

Tate dropped the gun on the floor. Charon knew right then that it was a lost cause, he'd leave the gun behind. Didn't matter how useful or valuable. Wasn't like they needed the caps though. Charon half expected Tate to melt too, just fall to the floor and pass out. The last hour had been traumatic for anyone. Well, anyone who hadn't been repeating the same shit over and over for the last 200 years. Traumatic for anyone who wasn't Charon.

"I couldn't save her."

"I don't know why you even tried, Smoothskin."

"Doesn't matter."

When Tate stopped talking, Charon lit a cigarette. Minutes ticked by while Tate composed himself. Wasn't doing a very good job though. Just clenching and unclenching his fists.

"I wanna fuck."

Not this shit again.

Tate started stripping out of his blood-soaked vault suit as if in a trance. Took off his undershirt too. "Take off your clothes, Charon." Command.

He had no choice but to comply. This fucking crazy ass contract bullshit.

Charon grunted and placed the assault rifle carefully by the side of the bed. Tate had to decide to do this in slaver country, in their home base, without first verifying that they had gotten them all. Great, just great. Stupid kid.

He started on the buckles of his armor, unhooking them with precision. His cock was getting hard already, which didn't even make sense because he sure as shit had not been attracted to men last time he checked. He'd had employers before who had him fuck women, sometimes for caps, sometimes for amusement. Only ever had one female employer, hadn't gotten to fuck her.

Tate had stripped himself down, including removing his sunglasses. His face was still streaked with blood from his nose. It clung to his fists too. Some on his Pip-boy screen, but the trails stopped where his jumpsuit would have covered.

Naked, Tate climbed into Eulogy's bed. He was already erect too, palming himself and breathing heavily. Despite himself, Charon worked faster to be rid of his armor. It was a funny thing, half-knowing that he'd fuck Tate willingly at this point, but full well considering it could always be the work of the contract. Just because Tate got off on being taken like a woman didn't mean his body could ever be mistaken for one. He was all densely packed muscle. Solid shoulders, small, tapered waist, narrow hips. Yeah, definitely not what Charon wanted. But then he did.

"Get over here and fuck me, Charon."

"How?"

It was almost a game at this point. Charon knew the answer, but he needed the command. Needed it so it wouldn't feel like himself doing these things. Tate saying it would remove his responsibility for what was going to transpire between them.

"Hard, make it hurt. I want it," he had to say it with that breathy voice, the one laced with arousal and pain. Didn't need to do say it like that, Charon would have to comply anyway.

Finally rid of his armor, Charon climbed on top of Tate, striking him across the face with his open hand. Not full strength, that would knock the kid out, but hard enough. The blond winced and his head flew to the side. When Tate turned back, his nose was bleeding again. Seeing Tate's face, the conflict in Charon's programming reared its head. Looked like someone he was supposed to kill. Ordered as someone he had to fuck.

"Yeah," Tate moaned, "like that."

Tate hadn't ordered him to talk, so Charon kept silent. He couldn't look at the kid's face anymore, flushed and covered in blood. He might have broken his nose, even though that hadn't been his intention.

Above Eulogy's bed hung a noose. That was a sick fucker for sure. Tate was sick too, but not like that.

He grabbed Tate by his hip and flipped him over, pushing his face into the bed. His hand tangled in the kid's messy blond hair and he held Tate in place against the mattress until he was struggling for air. When Charon pulled up, Tate took big gasps, filling his lungs and wheezing. Blood speckled the already dirty sheets.

Charon pulled Tate up onto his hands and knees, settling between his thighs but not yet penetrating him. He rutted against the curve of Tate's ass until the vaultie thrust frantically back against him. Grabbing Tate's right wrist, Charon pulled him up and drew his arm through the loop of the noose.

"Fuck yeah." Tate kept thrusting, nearly losing his balance.

The left arm with the Pip-boy was more difficult. He should have started with that one. Charon had to grab the arm above where the device ended and force the clunky thing through the loop. The result was that one arm sat further into the noose than the other, Tate's exposed left wrist pressing up against the casing of the Pip-boy.

When he ceased supporting Tate's weight, the blond fell forward and the noose tightened, binding his hands in place and stretching him at an obscene angle. On his knees, Tate's shoulders and back tightened, the muscles underneath his skin distinctly rendered. His back arched under the weight of his torso. He had spread his legs further to try and adjust his balance, but also as a clear invitation.

"Fuck, Charon, fuck…" his voice trailed off and his head dropped between his shoulders.

Tate hadn't requested preparation. So Charon didn't bother. It had been over a week since they last fucked, well before the first trip to Paradise Falls. Charon positioned himself behind the prone blond and parted his ass, lining himself up with Tate's entrance.

When he pushed past the tight ring of muscle, Charon could feel himself growl, but he couldn't quite hear it over Tate's shriek. When he met resistance, Charon wrapped one arm around Tate's torso and pulled him towards his own chest, holding him back and forcing him onto his cock. Tate's joints overextended to compensate for the stretch in his arms. This way, Charon was able to sheath himself fully even though Tate was tight and dry.

He could hear Tate sobbing now. Pain, maybe. But he didn't tell Charon to stop.

"Move, MOVE." Command.

Charon's hips complied, pulling out and thrusting back at about half-strength. Any harder and Tate might pass out. Charon slammed into the vaultie again and again until the movement became slick and pleasurable for him. When he looked down, there was blood on his cock. He had torn Tate open.

Didn't tell him to stop. Sobbed. But didn't tell him to stop.

Releasing Tate's torso, Charon instead grabbed hold of his hair, pulling his head back and extending his neck. His other hand wrapped around Tate's throat gently, but to the correct effect, limiting his breathing but not stopping it altogether. There would be bruises on his throat tomorrow for certain.

Now that he wasn't held tightly in place, Tate thrust his hips back, meeting Charon's. With the added encouragement, the clear desire, Charon quickened his pace, slamming himself into the blond. His hipbones would leave marks on Tate just as well as his hands would. Brutally marking his employer in the bed of a dead slaver. Intoxicating. How could he not want this?

Something warm and wet slid down Charon's hand, the one around Tate's throat. Not blood, not thick enough for blood. Tears.

"Butch."

It was a choked, pained thing. Hard to discern if it was a cry for help or Tate was play acting Charon was someone else. Tate had done this before and it had never become clear.

"Talk." Command.

Charon was not cruel, but he didn't know how to pleasure another man. Didn't really know what to do to make Tate come with his hands. No amount of mastrubating himself would teach Charon how to get this kid off. Good thing he knew how to do it with his voice.

"Shoulda left the collar on her. Kept her alive. I'd make you taste her pussy off my cock."

Tate shuddered and came, shooting his seed across the mattress and shivering in his bindings. His head fell lax again as Charon released his hair and throat. A whine emanated from him as Charon grabbed hold of his hips instead and continued fucking him. He was close, so close. Bleeding like this, it was almost as if Tate were wet for him. Still couldn't mistake the body for a female one, but this would have to do.

"Oh, fuck, fuck, fuck." Tate was oversensitive, having already come and still contorted in his binds. He still moved his hips, but only weakly, a token sign that he wouldn't just hang there and take it. "Charon, come."

Not a command. Request.

Charon came, buried in Tate's ass. He grunted, not being required to vocalize any further. His head spun a bit from the high of what he had done, thinking of the purple bruises that had already begun to materialize on Tate's body. But it was over now. He withdrew from Tate's rapidly cooling form, his cock coated with blood and a little bit of cum. Tate needed help out of the noose and Charon lifted the blond's weight up off the bed so the knot would come loose. Tate practically collapsed on the bed.

"We can't stay here, can we?" Tate seemed to already know the answer to his own question.

"Not safe." Charon climbed out of the bed and went for his armor. He wouldn't want to be caught out so defenseless.

"Right," Tate sounded exhausted. Hell, he'd already been exhausted even before they'd fucked. Still, he gingerly slid out of bed, unashamed of his nakedness and unconcerned with the corpses on the floor.

Tate wandered across the room, not outwardly expressing any signs of pain. Too proud for that, Charon supposed. He came to where Clover's body lay and turned it over with his foot. The bullet had gone through her chest, hitting something vital. The skin already looked unnaturally pale. Hell of a shot for a kid who couldn't aim.

"I want out." Command.


	8. Some Mistake (James POV)

James' child was happy, healthy. He smiled and laughed and played well with the other children, outgoing and spirited. Only the normal sort of youthful curiosity about how things were put together and came apart.

There wasn't a hint of deformity about him. Walking, speaking, then reading, running, it all came along as it should have, right on schedule. In fact, he ran a little faster, jumped a little higher. Took to reading better than math, but it would come along. James knew that consistent availability of non-irradiated food in the vault was sure to aid in mental and physical development.

Tate would be safe here. He'd made the right choice, a good choice.

On his 10th birthday, Tate was a little reluctant to put on the Pip-boy. He eyed the device suspiciously, then looked over to Alphonse inquisitively.

Hopefully this wouldn't end in a tantrum. The tantrums were becoming more and more frequent. As far as James could tell, Tate wasn't displaying symptoms of vault depressive syndrome, at least not as it read in the medical textbooks. But, then again, James had not been trained in psychology or psychiatry. All he had for reference were books and notes left by the last physician. Telling from the literature, Tate's behavior could be chalked up to mere youth, for certain.

But he was a doctor. He could see quite well that the boy was gaining pounds and growing inches at an acceptable rate. Still exhibited excellent athleticism; he was a bit always a bit faster than the other boys in his age group and had excellent reflexes.

When he was with Amata, Tate looked happiest. They held hands and laughed and smiled. His eyes looked absolutely bright. When they were older, they would be a good match.

When he looked at Alphonse, Tate scowled.

Otherwise, he seemed stable. The tantrums must have been perfectly normal. James just didn't know enough. He'd look for the reference later.

Tate put on the Pip-boy and winced when it sealed. James hadn't remembered the bioseal causing any discomfort. Didn't cause any of the children discomfort. Tate was just being obstinate, nothing was wrong.

Amata asked him what he wanted for his birthday.

"A date with Butch DeLoria."

It was normal enough to not want to take the G.O.A.T. The exam was stressful for many teens and, to be perfectly honest, sixteen was a bit young to have your whole future inside the vault decided on the basis of a dozen or so questions. But Tate had to try and fit in. They both did. So, James hurried his child along to the exam and wished him luck. Whatever result he received, James would be proud of him.

Well, that wasn't entirely true, but Tate was smart. Smarter than he let on, really. He may have tussled with the other boys on occasion, maybe he snuck a few beers here and there, but that was just youthful, mildly rebellious behavior. Tate was just testing his boundaries. In time, he'd settle down into a comfortable career in medicine or maybe teaching. There were lots of jobs at which he'd excel. This would be fine.

James spent the rest of the morning looking over patient reports. Freddie Gomez was showing sure signs of VDS. The anxiousness, becoming easily exhausted, searching for meaning in life. It was all quite clearly rendered in front of him from the list of symptoms. Checked all the boxes. He'd have to talk to the boy's father and get him treatment as soon as possible.

Among the bottles of pills and already filled syringes, James located the correct prescription and printed out a label with "F. Gomez: Once a day with a meal," rendered in uniform, legible type.

Tate stormed back into the clinic, rushing to the back room, unconcerned that there was a patient recovering in one of the beds. Kicking the empty cot, he screamed behind the glass. His face turned red but his breathing eventually slowed down. Everything would be all right. He just had to let off some steam.

When he returned to the office, Tate looked much better, calmer.

"What did you get, son?"

Tate shrugged his shoulders and brushed his dark hair out of his eyes. The jumpsuit he was wearing was looking a bit small, he'd have to go up another size.

"Chaplain. I dunno what that is, though."

"Oh, that's wonderful, Tate. That means you'll get to help others when they've lost direction with their lives, you'll perform wedding services, and mitigate disputes. It's a covetable position." It may have not been a medicine or science position, but James was happy, all the same.

Tate eyed his father suspiciously. "That doesn't sound like me."

"Give it time, son. You'll see."

All the groundwork had been laid. James sent a note to Jonas to meet him after dinner to make some final preparations before tomorrow morning. Only a few loose ends left.

There was a dull ache in his chest, but Tate was a man now, he didn't need him anymore to watch over him. If anything, his continued presence was a determent to Tate's maturation. James could quite clearly see what effect never being separated, really separated, from their parents did to vault children. Yes, he was leaving to continue the work he abandoned nearly two decades ago, but, this way, he could also give Tate the best of all possible worlds. The safety of the vault and the space to become the man James knew he could be.

Tate entered the clinic just a few minutes after his scheduled appointment time. This was another loose end to deal with. As the vault physician, it was in Tate's best interest to have one last exam, especially after last week.

James had found a naked Butch DeLoria in his son's bed, much to the horror of everyone involved. Tate screamed at him to get out and Butch looked like he was about to melt into the floor from embarrassment. At the time, as a father, he had shut the door and beat a hasty retreat. Tate was 19 now and if he wanted to engage in sexual activity, that was his prerogative. The only thing was, why did it have to be the DeLoria boy?

Today he had the opportunity to hide his embarrassment about the whole episode under the doctor's coat and professional formality. What he couldn't say as Tate's father, he could say as his physician. It had to be said by someone, because, as far as James could discern, he was the only source of sexual education in the vault.

Some months ago, Tate started bleaching his hair a dirty, yellowish-blond. He still wore it a little too long over his eyes.

"Ready for your checkup, Tate?" Don't call him son. Not now.

"I guess," he shrugged. "Only been seven months though."

Still, he obediently sat on the examination table while James took his blood pressure and heart rate and drew a bit of blood. First thing he'd run the bloodwork: cholesterol, communicative diseases, sugar, anything else he had the equipment for. If there was anything amiss, he could leave the requisite prescription with Jonas.

Told Tate to stand, height and weight. Still a little shorter than than the average vault male, but that was the nature of averages. Otherwise, seemed to be in excellent health.

"Do you ever feel sad or lonely unexpectedly?"

Tate shrugged, then shook his head no.

"Do you ever have thoughts of hurting yourself."

"Nah."

"Do you ever have thoughts of hurting others?"

Shake of the head. All these questions had been part of the exam seven months ago. Tate's grip on the edge of the examination table tightened until his knuckles turned white. James sped through the questions where he was already quite certain of the answer.

"Smoking?"

"No."

"Drug use?"

Head shake.

"Have you been sexually active in he he last 12 months?"

"Is that what this is about, dad?" He turned his face away, looking off to the side, past the big glass window. Didn't seem to be anything in particular on the other side. His fingers tapped along the underside of the table.

"I'm asking you as your doctor, not as your father."

"But you know the answer."

"Tate." He was stern, maybe too paternal, but doctors were paternal too, even when they were fathers. Even when they were women, too. It was just part of the territory.

"Yeah."

"With women?"

As the patient answered, James clicked the correct boxes on the report.

"Naw, dad, you know. You've always known, just didn't want to believe it."

"No I don't. With men?"

"Yeah." Now he was watching the very uninteresting ceiling. "I guess, sort of." In his nervousness, Tate was just sort of babbling.

"We should talk about how to protect yourself."

Clinically, James explained condom usage and safe sex practices to his patient. Following the standard outline, he converted contraception methods as well. Tate looked like he wanted to be anywhere at all but there, flushing red and playing with the longish strands of hair behind his ears. When they were done, Tate turned the little foil packet around in his hands and commented that it had an expiry date 198 years prior to the current one. James sighed and told his patient that it was an unfortunate side effect of the war above, but that didn't mean they couldn't do their best to be as safe and secure below.

Tate didn't really acknowledge the statement but slipped down from the table and silently made his way out of the clinic. He didn't even wait until he was out of James' line of sight before tossing the condom in the trash.

James didn't have a chance to say goodbye. The message and prescription bottles he left with Jonas would have to do.

The next time he saw Tate was coming out of the stasis pod in vault 112. He'd never expected to see his boy again. But out Tate stumbled, breathing heavily and a thin line of blood trickling out his left nostril. He looked dirty and tired and worn down, even though the 112 vault suit he wore was cleanly pressed and still smelled starchy. A half-inch of black roots stuck out from his scalp. Inside the pod he had been wearing sunglasses.

James wanted to hold his boy and cry for being so stupid as to follow him. "I told you to stay in the vault."

"Tell that to the Overseer, he tried to off me, pop." He wiped his nose with his sleeve a couple times, but all that did was move the blood around. Reaching forward, James rubbed it away with his own fingers. Tate had recoiled at the contact, but let him finish.

"I know there's a lot going on right now. This is all very sudden…." James began, not knowing quite how to handle the unexpected reunion. Inside the simulation, Tate had carried out some questionable actions. Perhaps necessary, but questionable none the less.

Tate in a tiny body, a child's body, hacking away at the digital avatars of real people. He cut them to ribbons until his arms got tired and then cried himself to sleep in the grass. But the task wasn't done.  
>Woke up. Disappeared into old lady Dithers' and then returned with a new sense of purpose. After the failsafe was thrown, Tate seemed almost content. But he slashed half a dozen of the simulated soldiers as well in a wild rage that terrified James to the core. Exhaustion and stress, though, that was all it could be. A meal and some sleep would help; this world must have been terrifying for Tate.<p>

"I just want you to know that I'm here if you want to talk. You seem troubled, like there's a cloud hanging over you."

Tate just turned his head away and gestured towards an absolutely giant ghoul standing quietly against the wall. "That's Charon."

James narrowed his eyes and offered his hand. Far be it for him to not be polite. "James."

Charon took the offered hand and shook firmly. He continued on smoking his cigarette and didn't offer up any additional conversation.

There were fading purple bruises around Tate's neck. James had failed to notice them inside the dimly lit vault. In the Wasteland sun, they were obvious.

Halfway to Rivet City, James felt compelled, as a father, to ask.

"You and Charon?"

Tate snickered in the dying light of the campfire.

"Don't worry, I was wrecked long before him."

There weren't enough rooms at the Weatherly Hotel. Tate offered to sleep down in the common room, but James thought that was ridiculous. Upon their arrival at the boat, Charon disappeared and James really wasn't responsible for the ghoul, but he was for Tate.

In the middle of the night, Tate slipped out of bed. When he returned, he smelled like grain alcohol and sex.

"Pop?"

"Yes, son?" James was bent over a box of equipment that had been stored hastily away when the purifier had been abandoned.

"Do you hate me?"

"Why would I?' James looked up from his task. Tate looked clean, but stressed out. His eyes were red-rimmed and his blond hair a mess. If James didn't know better, he could have sworn he was twelve years old again and crying over his first real fight with the DeLoria boy.

Tate pulled at the collar of his leather jacket, as if trying to bury himself in it. "I ain't smart enough for this science shit...aw hell." He started over. "I've done some really bad things since leaving the vault..."

James wanted to pull him close, hug him, and tell Tate he would always love him. "No, I've heard about the great things you've done. And you are absolutely smart enough. Just you don't have the experience. Some of the other scientists were talking. It was you that took out the slavers at Paradise Falls some weeks back, wasn't it?"

In response Tate shrugged. "You don't know how it went down." He pulled at the jacket again. "About that, Pop...did I have a sister? You know, before the vault?"

"What? No, you were our first, and only."

Instead of replying, Tate just sort of wandered off down the hall.

There was no other choice. They simply couldn't send one of the scientists. Tate wasn't in great shape, but he had managed to survive in the Wasteland despite being no more than a child. Besides, he would take Charon with him. Charon had proven exceedingly loyal and excellent in combat. James had seen him at work first hand on the trip from 112 to Rivet City. Very skilled with weapons. A good friend to have.

Besides, Tate wasn't one for being cooped up. He could tell as much now. Better for him to blow off some steam out in the wastes rather than interrupt the scientists at work on the purifier with his careless antics, buzzing around like a caffeinated bloatfly.

When James talked to his son about the mission, Tate resolutely stated he would retrieve the GECK. He would be useful. He'd make it so 'his pop' didn't hate him anymore. On reflex alone, he reminded Tate that he could never hate him.

On their way out, Tate laughed and called Charon a bigot and a zombie. The ghoul called him a commie twink.

James didn't really know what to make of that.

It was a strange, painful death.

Tate on the other side of the glass, screaming, pounding the wall, and cursing. Blood ran down his nose from both nostrils. James' whole world narrowed to his son's shuddering body, like he was absorbing the radiation too, though, that couldn't be possible.

He thought back to the vault, and Tate taking his anger out on the limited supply of medical-grade cots.

Other memories of disassembling his toys and then trying to stick the tiny parts into the mouths of other children.

Of the time he spent crying over Amata for seemingly no reason in particular.

To the way he slashed the phony soldiers while they cut through artificial bodies.

Strange questions of a sister he never had.

Tate screaming in his sleep on the second night of the trip from 112 to Rivet City. Screamed so loud that James was up in an instant. Charon was covering Tate's mouth with his arm to muffle the cries. Shrugging it off and stating quite plainly that sometimes this happened. All the ghoul could do was try and keep things quiet enough it didn't pose a danger.

A prescription bottle that he never received because he had found Jonas' dead body and ran. But that didn't matter, because now James knew that it had been the wrong diagnosis all along

James wasn't a psychiatrist, or a psychologist; that didn't matter. But he was a father. Maybe that had been his mistake.


	9. I hate suspense (Butch MLW)

130758271257: flakandshrap got more grenades  
>271257130758: how many?<br>130758271257: 4  
>271257130758: k be down in a sex<br>271257130758: *sec  
>130758271257: lol<p>

Butch put out his cigarette on the metal railing and tossed the butt into the water. His Pip-boy screen dimmed from inactivity. On his way back below deck he clapped Charon on the back. Guy would probably still be out here hours later. Never was much for grenadeball.

He swung by the Weatherly to grab Tate's baseball bat and his own sunglasses. Not because he had any sort of weird paranoid about people getting too good a look at him, but because the sun was actually really high in the sky at the moment. And the downside of grenadeball was if you missed, you lost a limb. Upside, it was awesome.

Twirling the bat like a baton while he walked the halls of the ship, Butch managed to keep himself entertained until he reached Tate. The other vaultie was all smiles, two freshly purchased grenades in each hand. Smiled so wide Butch could see his perfect rows of white teeth.

"Hurry up!"

Tate was absolutely kinetic, his left leg bouncing and both his arms twitching. They had been in Rivet City for six days now, and showed no signs of leaving. Butch knew that Tate was torn up about what happened at Big Town, but that wasn't his fault, wasn't any of their faults. Those kids were tougher than they let on, though. The survivors would rebuild and be stronger for it. Strange, that Butch thought of them as kids though most of them were the same age as him and Tate, a couple older, even.

As they crossed the bridge back to dry land, Butch didn't fail to notice the look that Tate gave Chief Harkness. They'd been discussing the guy for days now, but they still needed more proof. The holo in Sister's room wasn't quite enough to be sure, but they were running out of places to look. Butch still didn't know what Tate planned to do if the security chief was the missing android. He'd asked Butch's opinion but he didn't really have one. Knew the recall code though, they'd gotten that off of Zimmer. Knew the recall code and that maybe, just maybe, it was that security chief with his fucking perfect face that Tate kept staring at.

"So I guess we get two shots apiece." Tate left three of the grenades by his feet and tossed the fourth in his hand.

The rules of the game were simple; pitcher tries to chuck the grenade at the batter and blow them up. Batter tries not to get blown up and, hopefully, smashes the grenade as far out of range as possible.

"How many stims you bring?" Butch drew a line in the dirt, even though it wasn't like the rules of the game were sophisticated enough to warrant any notion of a strike. You were out when you crippled a limb, obviously.

"Six, here, you take three of 'em." Tate reached into his overstuffed pocket and handed Butch three of the syringes. The objective wasn't to actually lose the limb, after all, just flirt with danger a little bit. And if it ended with getting to play doctor, well... "You bat first. I'll pitch."

Butch smirked, "you're a shit pitcher, Tate."

"I just play to my strengths, asshole."

Tate pulled the pin and chucked the explosive as hard as he could at Butch's face. The distance between the pitch and the batting area was plenty, and grenades didn't travel as fast as baseballs did, and it wasn't just a double entendre, Tate wasn't that great a pitcher, so Butch easily readjusted his position and smashed the explosive clear of the playing field. In the distance they both heard it detonate with a satisfying clap.

The second hit didn't go quite as far and the grenade blew up just behind Tate, who had to duck out of the way to avoid getting hit by the line drive. Some of the gravel and dust flew back in Tate's direction, but it looked like his vault suit did enough to protect his skin.

"Alright, Nosebleed, my turn to pitch." Butch dropped the bat on the ground and walked towards Tate, who remained rooted in place. Looking around for observers quickly, Butch figured they were alone enough and tilted his head down to kiss his friend. He was only marginally surprised when Tate grabbed at the lapels of his jacket and pulled him in, extending their contact.

When they finally did pull apart, Tate was smiling. Good. Maybe he was starting to feel better and they could get away from the damn boat. The blond didn't release Butch's jacket though. Held on and played with it between his fingers, re-adjusting his grip a couple of times.

"You wanna play or what?"

"Yeah, of course." Tate released him and turned away. The sound of his zipper lowering just a couple of inches cut through the muggy Wasteland air. Butch couldn't help but smirk, it was such an obvious flirtation.

Tate kicked up the bat and it landed quite squarely in his grip. This part of the game he was quite good at. Had been his idea, after all. When things were happening close to him, Tate was really masterful. It was judging distances at range he had always had trouble with. No matter how much he practiced with that b.b. gun back in the vault, his aim was never as good as Amata's. Even Butch overtook his accuracy, though he had been let in on the group activity a little late. If only he could smack bullets with a bat.

Because he was a fucking show-off, Tate liked to point out where he planned on hitting the grenade. Fucker got it right most of the time too, even though pitches were deliberately erratic. Tate pointed off at a metal garbage can turned over on its side some distance behind Butch. Still close enough that they would get to watch the explosive go off.

Just like he predicted, Tate hit the can head on. It bounced in the air from the force of the blast and made an awful lot of noise. Seemingly for a job well done Tate lowered the zipper at the front of his vault suit a little more. Now it was painfully obvious that he wasn't wearing an undershirt and Butch was getting a pretty good look at Tate's defined chest and just a hint of abdomen. Nice.

"Gonna call your shot again, Nosebleed?"

This time the blond pointed to halfway between the two of them. Given the damage radius that these grenades normally gave off, it was a dangerous choice. Butch let Tate make it, though.

Made his shot and dirt flew up into their faces when the grenade went off. The sunglasses kept any of it from getting into their eyes and Butch was pretty well protected by his vault suit and Tunnel Snake jacket. When the dust cleared there were red pinpricks of blood against Tate's exposed chest. Didn't look like much damage though.

"Fuck that was awesome." Tate's hands were shaking and he dropped the bat.

Butch took two steps towards his friend but Tate was faster. Running at three-quarters speed he crashed into Butch, knocking him to the ground and climbing on top of him. Tate's heart was pounding so hard in his chest that Butch thought his friend was about to burst open. But Tate was laughing through wet, open-mouthed kisses when normally they were kind of reserved in public. Just sort of an unspoken thing. Butch didn't really know why, though. He'd scream from the top of the boat that Tate was his if he could. If he could be sure that Tate was actually his, after all.

Turning his head to the side, Butch tried to look over to the deck of the boat. It was a funny angle, but he didn't see Charon up there.

"Let's go inside." Butch ran his hands up and down Tate's arms. They were still shaking from the adrenaline.

"Tell me why we should go inside, Butch?"

He was always like this. Liked to talk about what they were going to do. Even back in the vault, though they hadn't really done that much. It took Butch awhile to warm to the idea, but this was Tate, so he'd do it.

"So I can suck your cock in private."

"And?" Tate bit at Butch's bottom lip until he gasped a little in pain.

"Fuck your ass, Nosebleed." Butch punctuated his statement by grabbing onto Tate's backside with both hands and squeezing. Got a hot as all hell moan in response.

Tate scrambled to his feet and zipped his vault suit back up. Butch made a show of patting the dirt off of his legs. The baseball bat was retrieved and they made their way back to the ship, Butch trying as best he could to be subtle about the boner in his suit. The things were really unforgiving in contexts like this.

Bypassing the marketplace they headed up to the hotel. When the hallways were empty, Tate's hand would brush against his, or against the outside of his leg. Little things that actually made Butch kind of nauseous in their normalcy.

Vera wasn't at her desk and Butch got a crazy idea about fucking Tate in the lobby. But it was just that, a crazy idea. The robot was still there and would undoubtedly stop them. Or just like, scream in horror.

Inside the room was a bit of a mess. The kind of mess that accumulated in temporary living quarters that had ceased being as temporary as they should have been.

Tate was already stripping. He hadn't worn underwear under his vault suit either and Butch got a little harder thinking that Tate had been like this all day, had wanted him, all day. It wasn't just momentary mania brought on by their dangerous amusements.

Butch tossed aside his sunglasses but left his vault suit on, for now, and pushed the very naked Tate onto the bed. "Sit on the edge."

Tate obeyed, letting his legs fall over the side and rest on the floor and spreading his thighs far enough for a kneeling Butch to fit between. Perfect. Tate was hot shit and knew it. The two of them had that in common. From one of the open packs, Butch grabbed a bottle of lube and tossed it on the bed next to his friend. He'd get to it in a minute.

In the meantime he threw down one of their heavy hooded sweatshirts to soften the floor. Kneeling between Tate's legs, Butch went to work on his half-hard cock. Tate got bigger in his mouth within a minute or so and started panting heavily.

When Butch couldn't talk, always seemed like Tate made up for it by rambling twice as much.

"Ah, fuck, Butch. You look so so good with my cock in your mouth. Fuck, fuck," he whined.

Butch knew he wasn't actually that good at sucking Tate off. Only ever took about half of him into his mouth, kept the rest of it in his curled hand and tried real hard to make the pace between the two the same.

But that was the thing. This was Tate and so he would try. He would try really really fucking hard because in the end, it didn't matter how many good things or how many bad things his friend did in the world. All those people who cursed him or wanted to lick his boots only cared about what Tate did for them. No one else gave a fuck who Tate was. But Butch did. Because Butch wanted Tate before this whole fucking above ground world had ever heard of him and he was just dumbass Nosebleed who annoyed the shit out of him half the time and the other half made him hard in his pants just by smiling the right sort of way.

Once Tate was hard and heavy in his mouth, making pliant little noises, Butch pulled back and rested on his heels. He grabbed the lube bottle and warmed enough of it in his hands to get Tate started. If he were more dexterous, maybe he could jerk off Tate at the same time as stretching him, but he hadn't gotten that trick down yet. Placing his free hand on Tate's thigh, he worked a finger in past the barest hint of resistance.

He tried not to think about it. Tate wanted him; he wanted Tate.

"Oh, fuck, Butch." Tate grabbed his own dick and moved his hand in irregular strokes, more to keep himself hard than to actually get off. A second finger went in and Butch drew patterns against Tate's thigh with his other hand.

A whine of frustration fell from Tate's mouth and it about killed Butch right there. Fucking dead how needy and worked up he got. All the time too.

"You ready?"

Tate nodded vigorously, his blond hair bouncing around. It got really floppy. Made him look a little younger, sometimes. Maybe not. Maybe they were supposed to look this young? Fuck if Butch knew. Everyone out here looked so old and worn out, though.

"Was ready ages ago."

Butch smirked and stood up to do away with his own clothes, just sort of tossing them into the pile Tate had started. In the meantime, Tate readjusted his position on the bed, lying on his back and keeping his legs apart.

"Like this, Butch?" He was still toying with himself.

"Yeah, wanna watch you come."

Wanted to watch him always.

But couldn't tell him that.

Not yet, anyway.

Well prepared like this, Butch easily slid into Tate, but they both hissed at the contact. It was good. Really fucking good. Felt like Tate was everywhere around him, warm and in a good mood for the first time in ages. Tate got his legs up and onto Butch's shoulders and it was fucking perfect. Great thing too that Tate wasn't really that much shorter, just a couple of inches, and they could kiss like this when they wanted. Butch always wanted and Tate would let him.

Butch stuck his hands on either side of Tate's head to support his weight. Between their bodies Tate stroked himself while Butch stroked into him. While the air in the room had been cool when they entered, it was warm around them now.

"Harder, please." Tate was always so fucking desperate about everything. Never wanted to wait.

Shifting his weight onto his stronger right hand freed Butch's left to pull on Tate's hair. Ran his fingers to the roots and just pulled until Tate screwed his eyes shut. Even though they had managed to damage it through the constant bleaching, it still felt soft in his hand.

Butch slammed his hips against Tate's hard enough that it would leave marks. Wanted to leave marks all over the other marks, forget the other marks even existed. Forget that there were handprints larger than his own that marred Tate's skin.

At first Butch thought about all these things, but the anger and jealousy receded as his focus narrowed to the body beneath him, squirming and whining and rolling his hips despite his submissive position. Fuck did Tate look good like this. Felt good too. Felt hot and sweaty and solid. His neck was exposed as his hair was pulled and Butch leaned forward and bit. Bit him just on the side of his neck until he gasped and mewled. When Butch pulled away he could make out the individual impressions of his teeth.

"I'm your whore, right, Butch?"

"Yeah, Nosebleed, mine."

He wanted to do more, to be better. Butch released Tate's hair and shifted his weight onto his left arm so he could slot his right hand between their bodies, pulling Tate's hand away from his dick and replacing it with his own. It took focus, maybe more focus than Butch entirely had, but that was good because otherwise he was about to come too soon and like hell he was gonna leave Tate unsatisfied. So he pumped Tate in his right and and fucked him as hard as he could with his cock. Tried different things until Tate's short fingernails were scratching the shit out of him. The blond's entire body started spasming and it felt so fucking good.

But fucking good on two levels. One because it just felt amazing, but it always felt amazing when Tate came and started bucking around. Sometimes Butch worried that with all the thrashing he'd like, accidentally rip his dick off. But that had never happened so he was probably in the clear to just enjoy it. Second because Butch had managed to please Tate better than he had before. Managed to do two things at once when normally he could only really manage one. They were getting better. And if he got good enough...

"Fuck, Butch, fuck. Fill me up."

Okay, he'd be lying if he said he didn't like Tate's talking sometimes, because that was hot as hell.

Now that Tate was spent, Butch's hand returned to his hair, pulling and not really caring that it was covered in cum.

"Mine, Tate, you are mine."

"Yes, yours. Always yours."

That was enough to tip Butch over the edge. Even if it was only a pretty lie. But Tate did keep his promises, so some part of that had to be true. Stopping and starting up again, Butch spilled into Tate and slowed his pace. Wound all the way down until they were both motionless, just holding together for comfort.

Butch slid out as his arm grew tired and grabbed his undershirt off the floor to try and wipe at least Tate's stomach and his own hand clean. Tate looked utterly spent, but also content. Good.

Eventually they would have to get up and shower, but that need seemed really far away at the moment. Butch slid back into bed and curled his arm around Tate's torso, holding him firmly in place against his chest, smelling his hair and trying not to think about anything other than the present, pleasant moment.


	10. Leave Before You Lose (Raider MLW noncon

(I've heard of psychiatry before  
>In a textbook my father owned<br>The pills he wanted me to take  
>Pretended I never saw them)<p>

It wasn't their hands on me, in me,  
>I'm just not that weak.<br>It was that they made me feel weak. I'm not.  
>They're all fucking dead. I'm not.<p>

The Basement at Springvale School  
>Is where I learned the lessons my father wouldn't teach.<p>

(I've heard of love before  
>In a book by a long-dead German<br>Read it to someone who would understand  
>He said it was something different)<p>

They called me strange things,  
>In the garbled language of their high.<br>Sticks and stones,  
>Golf clubs and baseball bats.<p>

The building still stands there, gray, immobile.  
>Instead my world moves around the ruins.<p>

(I've heard of trust before  
>From the mouth of someone<br>Who had no choice but to obey  
>Crushed underground because of me)<p>

Even now I would know their faces  
>Their baseball bats, golf clubs, cocks.<br>I'd show you where they shot me  
>Full of drugs I have no names for. A waste.<p>

Growing stupidly careless over time, but I don't know how much  
>I killed them one by one, two by two.<p>

(I've known of happiness before  
>From a girl beneath the ground<br>She was so beautiful bright and alive  
>I hope that's still true)<p> 


	11. Take Your Time (Butch MLW)

Tate knew he must have been driving his two companions up the wall. While he had never said they had to stick with him on the boat while he worked through whatever thing he was going through, they had just hung around for weeks and weeks while he tried to, he didn't even know. Mourn? Maybe that was what it was. Security had found him on the floor of the labs with half a bottle of vodka in his stomach and the other half soaked into his clothes. And that was only the beginning of it.

It wasn't like Charon actually had any real choice in the matter. He went where his contract took him. But if Butch had wanted to leave the ship, Tate would have handed over Charon's contract in order to make sure his friend stayed safe. The worst thing Tate was likely to encounter on the ship was Droid and they had him pretty well under their fingers at this point. Yeah, well, the Droid had thrown him against a wall out of anger right before they left. Smashed Tate up until his nose bled and his head hurt. It wasn't a big deal though.

Now he had cabin fever, boat fever, something fever. He had to kill something, maybe a lot of things. And while he and Butch had proven that they could get away with a fuck of a lot on the boat, killing residents wasn't going to be one of them.

And the thing was he didn't actually want to kill anyone, he just wanted to feel capable again. And he was good at hitting things until they died. Wanted to feel like he wasn't a fuck up that everyone hated and at the same time still loved. Because he knew that they loved him because his father was gone. When Star Paladin Cross had spoken so fondly of his father, Tate had wanted to punch her in the face. Make her see that he was different. If Tate had done it, she probably would have torn him apart. Butch and Charon would be carting him out of the Citadel in pieces.

It wasn't just her. Everyone at the Citadel looked at him and spoke of his father. They wanted Pop but just got Tate. The physical similarities confused the two in their minds. Needed to remind them that his Pop was a lauded scientist, smart, even tempered, if a bit clueless regarding the world around him. Tate was a punkass menace who had fucked up so bad that he got his Pop killed in the process.

Tate wanted to feel capable again so he bought Butch a new gun and plenty of ammunition for Charon too. They both looked fucking terrifying in their armor and assault rifles slung over their shoulders. Tate thought himself a lucky guy and carried most of the provisions himself since his 10mm was smaller and lighter. He only carried it at all because of Charon's insistence.

They entered the tunnels at Anacostia and planned to take them all the way through to Meresti. Old Lady Agatha had wanted some favor from him before. Before his Pop died. And while Tate wasn't so keen on it at the time, he figured it was as good a place as any to start. He'd seen the pistol too, that he could get in exchange. Tate wanted it. Wanted to give it to Butch because because he thought he might like it.

Besides, the trip would take them away from the Citadel. It did take them in the neighborhood of Big Town, oh. Tate considered stopping in to see what was left of the kids. They'd probably run him out of town, though. It had been the first time in ages he and Butch had been around a bunch of people about their age, and he had to go and fuck that up too.

Tate liked the tunnels. Reminded him of home, a little bit.

They ended up having to spend the night below ground, huddled together in an information vestibule with a single mattress. Charon said he would stay on watch the whole night. Had been sleeping an awful lot as it was.

Butch didn't hesitate to wrap his arm around Tate as they lay down together. Pushed his leg between Tate's too and snuck a hand down the front of his loosened leather armor. His breath was heavy against Tate's ear as he spoke in hushed tones.

"Spread your legs, a little."

It was no use. Charon could hear everything in the enclosed space. Pulled Butch off of him so fast that it hurt as his hand scraped against the sensitive flesh of Tate's groin. Felt fucking good but he was painfully alone on the mattress and Butch was relegated to sleep sitting up against the opposite wall.

"You fucking kids are going to get us killed."

"We were keeping quiet." Butch was pouting in the corner where Charon dumped him.

"That one never keeps quiet and you know it."

Tate knew Charon was talking about him. He rolled over to face the opposite wall, showing his back to both of them. Now he was just alone, cold, and aroused. At least before he had Butch to keep him warm. Fucking Charon.

"Shut the fuck up." Butch could never leave Charon well enough alone.

"Don't make me shut you the fuck up, kid." The click of Charon's lighter and smoke started filling the enclosed space. Tate didn't mind, always liked the smell. Butch lit up next. None of them were going to get to sleep. Too on edge. Tate's fault for keeping them cooped up so long.

"I'd like to see you try. You can't do shit to me, old man." Butch exhaled heavily.

"I can do whatever I'd like to you. Contract doesn't keep me from hurting you."

Tate finally had to intercede. "No, but I can stop you, Charon."

Charon's only response was a noncommittal grunt.

Could practically hear the smile in Butch's voice. "So, tell me Tate, should I get back into bed?"

"Fuck yes you should."

Charon didn't reply. Burned down his smoke while Butch pressed his chest against Tate's back. His hands went wandering again. Pushed the waistband of Tate's armor a little over his hips and wrapped around Tate's half-hard cock. Tate bit the inside of his cheek in order to prove Charon wrong. Bit down on his cheek and grabbed hold of Butch's forearms, letting his nails dig into the leather of his armor. Tate let his hips buck first forward, then back, brushing against Butch's crotch in the process. Hard to tell through the layers of armor, but he was sure Butch wanted him. Wouldn't be doing this if he didn't. Butch groaned into the back of Tate's neck when he rolled his hips again.

Fucking Charon.

At least this time Tate's waistband had been rolled down far enough and Butch let go of his dick fast enough that it didn't get ripped off or something. But fucking fuck Charon the asshole. This was awful. Just awful.

"The fuck, asshole!" Butch fought it this time. Brought his fists to Charon's face and punched him hard as he could. The crack split through the darkness.

No, no.

Tate was up in an instant, grabbing at both of Charon's arms trying to pull him back and away from Butch. The booth was so small though. Tate held on and widened his stance to give him as much leverage as he could get. Charon still outweighed him though, all that extra height and equivalent muscle. Being lower to the ground would only do so much for Tate.

He had told Butch about this, fucking told him never to hit Charon. That no matter how much the two bickered and fought at cursed at each other, he was never, ever to strike him.

"Go, Butch, run!" Tate's grip held firm, maybe he was stronger than he thought, or Charon's self-preservation drive was not quite as strong as he anticipated.

"No! Fuck this. You own him, Tate. Not the other way around. Fuck you both!"

So much for not attracting attention. There was bound to be a pack of incoming ferals.

"Butch, stop. Just apologize okay before we become zombie food."

"No. No Tate. What, do you want him more than you want me? Is that it?" Butch looked defeated, but only for a moment. "Nah, fuck that." He smashed his fist into Charon's face again and the bodyguard broke loose.

Butch tried to grapple with Charon, but there was no room to maneuver and they smashed into the metal wall. A dull clang filled the space and the whole vestibule shook. Tate could hear them now, the heavy footfall of the approaching ferals. Some quicker than others. Groans that he had never quite been able to place punctuated by hissing. Many of them. How many, he wasn't sure. They'd ignore Charon and tear him and Butch to shreds. That was if Charon didn't beat Butch to a pulp first. Charon had Butch on his back and if Tate didn't do something soon…

The ferals.

The contract was overridden when Charon was physically threatened. He'd always defend himself. But if Tate was in more immediate danger than Charon, he wasn't sure which order would take priority.

No time to think it through. Tate scrambled out of the vestibule and headed towards the noise.

"Tate!" Charon's voice followed him out.

Just run. The faster he ran, the faster Charon would forget about Butch's dumb ass and follow him towards the ghouls. This would work, they wouldn't hurt Charon but his anger would be redirected. They would make it out of this and all laugh about it afterwards. Hah hah so funny that time the two of you tried to murder each other. Good times.

Charon was long-legged. He was bound to catch up to Tate before too long. But Tate knew he was quick, slid down the escalator rail and darted into the tunnel. Had to gain as much distance as he could. There they were, the feral pack, coming out from between two cars. They must have been sleeping or just hiding behind them. Their leathery arms surged forward, grasping and clawing at Tate though they were still a step or two out of range. Tate closed his eyes and waited for Charon to reach him. He'd make it in time. Always did.

Right on cue huge hands grabbed Tate's shoulders and threw him back, away from the wall of ferals. Tate had expected to land on the ground but ended up against Butch. His face was all swollen on one side and his armor was torn loose at the shoulder. Charon hadn't gotten him so bad.

"Fuckface, you were supposed to run away from him, not chase him."

"Nosebleed, I was chasing you."

Tate didn't tell Butch to let go. Maybe he should have. Charon was unloading his shotgun into the mass of tangled feral bodies, one bolt after another. They rang through the tunnel walls. They were attracting even more attention, but at least Butch was safe.

"I told you not to hit him."

"And I told you not to fuck him." Butch was still angry, that was for certain.

They heard it before they saw it. The low rumble and quiet shake. The earth settling around them. It wasn't cause for concern. Not at first. One heard it a lot in these tunnels. Probably could hear it in the vault too if not for the low hum that was a constant reminder of the safety that surrounded them when they were home. So, no, Butch and Tate didn't think much of the creaking and groaning that signaled the tunnel collapsing. Not until the debris started falling. Plaster bits coming down like rain. Something they had read about, but never seen.

Charon had seen rain. Many lifetimes ago.

Concrete came next. Heavy flakes rushing to the floor. Powder clouded the air around them. Someone yelled to run. Tate wasn't sure who. Might have been himself. Every step was echoed in the collapse. Underground was supposed to be safe, well, safer. That was what they were taught, both below ground and in the Wastes. How lucky they were, to be vault kids. So lucky, the underground-children.

Charon wasn't so lucky. His boots weren't behind them anymore. But Tate didn't stop. If he stopped, Butch would stop. Then they'd all be dead.

The world finished settling. Tate screamed. Alive. He was alive. Butch was alive.

"CHARON!"

Even Butch knew better than to say anything. Tate clawed at the wreckage of the collapse, pulling away the chunks he could and working around the bits that were too heavy. They didn't have a clear idea of where they had lost Charon. Butch crawled on top of the fallen debris, looking for any sign. There was none. Pulled at scraps until their hands were raw and bleeding. Tate found Charon's arm. Thought it was Charon's arm, the hand looked big enough.

Tore at the fractured concrete until his hands were shredded and only dimly registered Butch digging besides him. Not once did the arm move. Too late. It would always be too late. Tate was too panicked to worry about the hot tears running down his cheeks. Not for Charon. Fuck Charon. For his own failures.

Face was smashed in, pulpy. Clouded blue eyes just...gone. At least he hadn't suffocated. Probably died before he was even buried.  
>Tate sank back and only then thought to wipe his face, just sort of smeared the dust around. Butch stopped digging a while later. It was useless, and there was no reason to get the body out now.<p>

"Tate, fuck. I'm sorry."

"I'll always pick you. Remember that. Please. He's dead, but all I can think about is how it could have been you." Tate's mouth moved and words came out, but they felt very far away.

Tried to push Butch onto his back, tried to climb on top. Tried to feel anything but the feeling of failure that sat in his gut and he couldn't vomit back out. Butch was pliant, but didn't reach for him. Didn't touch him. Just looked up and all that was there was a sort of resignation. A sort of guilt. Butch was good, kinder than Tate. Of course he would blame himself. Tate would blame himself too, but not for the same reasons.

Tate fell asleep there, Butch's fingers threaded through his hair. Just when he thought things were getting better.


	12. Say a Little Grace for Me (Butch MLW)

Tate had thrown the pulse charge from Burke into the sea and exchanged that space in his pack with a piece of his own brain, extracted and bottled up. It was weird to think that little fleshy thing was him, some part of him. It didn't look fucked up, even though he was pretty sure that he was fucked up.

The trip back to the Capital was lazy and slow. He bided his time playing on his pipboy and examining his too-long roots in a cracked mirror in his cabin. In a manic moment he had chopped off a bunch of his hair, and with the weeks he had been gone, it was only half-blonde, half-black. He didn't know if Butch would even be around to fix it.

Of all the colossal ways Tate had fucked up since the vault, this was probably the worst, yeah, worse than Paradise Falls for sure. Worse than watching those kids die in Big Town because he wasn't good enough. Worse than getting Charon killed. No fucking contest. But it was Butch's fault too with those pretty, sick words that he just had to say again. And again. And again. Couldn't just let them be.

Water lapped at the side of the boat and Tate thought about throwing his brain chunk over the side too.

It had been what, two years since he left the vault? Something like that. Nineteen when he left and nearly 22 now. Still a dumbass kid though. The Brotherhood still on his case and trading one slave for another. He walked from the docks to Megaton and contemplated his sins.

"Stop, Tate, please. Why won't you just love me? Why am I never enough?"

Butch had never understood, half the time he did these things for them. He fucked Charon and he fucked A3-21 so he didn't get scared. They were balms for the basement at Springvale, that burn that would fester seemingly for a lifetime. Obedient toys that did as he said right down to the letter. Butch didn't know what a threat he posed, with his own will and desires. Butch was dangerous, the android was safe, Charon had been safe.

Stop.

Please.

He didn't know what to anticipated when he opened the door to the Megaton house, bought and paid for with Tate's body and an accidental corpse.

Wadsworth hummed in the kitchen, but didn't greet him anymore. Butch had changed that setting because it drove them both nuts. Tate dropped his pack on the floor and toed off his boots, not bothering with the laces.

Soft groans, masculine, feminine, came from upstairs. The sound of the mattress squeaking against the bed frame. Stunned, Tate grabbed a beer from the fridge and sat down on the couch. Drank his beer and listened to "Butch, Butch!" and started at the mute, deactivated A3-21 in the corner looking back at him with glass eyes.

He was messed up.

Minutes later they were done and Butch came down the stairs, sweaty and shirtless and totally gorgeous, like always.

"I didn't hear you come in." He only stopped for a moment before continuing on to the kitchen and grabbing a bottle of water. Drinking in silence Tate clawed for a response, where was his silver tongue now?

"Didn't want to disturb you."

The woman descended next, fully dressed but a bit rumpled in her RobCo jumpsuit. Shoulda looked rumpled, Butch was good at what he did. They had a lot of practice.

"Hey Moira, how's it going?"

"Oh! Tate, you're back."

Tate couldn't will himself to be mad at Moira. Wasn't her fault. Wasn't anything, Butch was as available as Tate was as far as the world was concerned. She took the bottle of water from Butch's hands and drank.

"You'll come see me later, right? I'd love to hear about your trip, what the rest of the Eastern Seaboard is like. Would be great in my next book."

"Course, you can count on it."

She waved goodbye to them both and trot out the door, cheerful as ever.

Butch hadn't said a damn thing. Just lit up a cigarette and leaned against the wall, only a hair more responsive than the droid.

"Butch."

"No, Tate, no."

Tate slid away from the backrest of the couch, his knees bumping into the coffee table as his posture shifted. His eyes cocked towards the ceiling.

"Want you to take me upstairs. Want you to fuck me in the bed you just fucked her in, rub my face in it. Want you to tell me I'm not as good as a tight pussy, because I'm too used up." He started with those fucking ugly tears again, running down his face and out below his frames. "Want you to pin me down and rape me and cum in my ass. Want you to say I'm worthless."

"No, Tate." Butch grabbed his jacket on the way out to cover his torso, but didn't take anything else with him.

So, Tate turned on A3-21 and instructed him to do those things instead.

The sheets smelled like Butch but then the real thing climbed in too. Smelled strongly of cigarettes. One of his arms wrapped around Tate's waist and pulled him back towards his chest. Tiny, frivolous kisses littered the back of his neck, hot little punctuations.

"Didn't think you were coming back." Tate ran his fingers along the bones of Butch's hand, knuckles that were covered in scars like his own.

"I shouldn't have."

Maybe Tate should have finally done something inexcusable, drive Butch away forever. But if he hadn't found what that thing was by accident yet, like hell he would discover it by thinking too much.

Butch's hands traced patterns on Tate's abdomen, circles and helixes. Their breathing was evenly matched. Now that he was awake, Tate could hear the radio on downstairs, probably the droid looking for a way to pass the hours of blankness he was reduced to. Tate knew he was responsible for that too.

"We gotta figure this out, Tate."

"Why we gotta talk at all?" Tate twisted around in Butch's arms so he was facing the other man. Even in the darkness, Butch's eyes shone. Tate knew his just receded into the darkness.

"Can't solve everything with sex."

"We can try though."

Their mouths found each other, or rather, had always been there. Waiting. Through everything.

Butch pulled back, gripping Tate's chin between two fingers and his thumb.

"Why do you always fuck other people? Tell me, because I don't get it."

"You do too, Amata, Vera, Moira." As if listing Butch's trespasses would absolve Tate from guilt.

"Cause you reject me. Over and over again. Every fucking time. Leave me in the vault, activate the purifier, run off to fuck knows where for eight weeks without me." Butch's voice was angry, but something else too. Something primal and possessive.

"Tate, you've kept your fuck toys in my fucking face for the last two years. Parading that shit in front of me like you're proud of it."

"They do the things you won't do."

"You're a liar."

"Yeah, a real shithead."

"Why'd you even take me from the vault then?"

Why had he? Because he was selfish. He wanted Butch so bad even though he had Charon waiting for him at the door. Found out that Butch and Amata were gonna have a baby and took him anyway. Sure, he hadn't been thinking straight at the time, his Pop had just died and everyone was crawling up his ass, but that wasn't an excuse.

"Because I'm not me without you."

Butch laughed bitterly.

"I don't deserve your love though."

That was the crux of the problem, wasn't it.

"Isn't about deserving, Nosebleed."

But it was, it was about the trauma of a life Tate hadn't chosen. Butch hadn't chosen it either and maybe in that way Tate was just like his Pop. They hadn't discussed Butch leaving the vault, Tate just called him, assumed he would follow. His Pop expected him to stay in the vault, maybe find a nice boy and settle the fuck down. But then in the Wastes, it was all about running. At some point he'd have to stop blaming his Pop, but that didn't have to be today.

"I have something to show you."

Yeah, it was time, not for forgiveness but maybe for this. Tate crawled out of Butch's arms and went for his pack, pulling out the notes he had taken off of the mercs, folded up as small as he could make them. Little, spiteful paper footballs. Didn't have all of them, but some of the early ones and at least one of the later. His fingers shook as he handed them over. Butch turned on his pipboy light to illuminate the words.

"What are these?"

"That first week I was out...this guy, real fucker, wanted me to detonate that bomb outside. I said no, then he asked me to spread my legs and I said yes." Times like this, Tate wished he had taken up smoking. Would've given him something to do with his mouth and his hands. "Sent me these letters after. Dozens of copies."

"This is your solution? Telling me what a hot piece of ass you are and how the whole fucking Wasteland wants you on your back? Cause Nosebleed, I know."

Tate scowled, but Butch didn't even seem to notice.

"I thought I'd get something out of it, like a trade, you know? Place to stay, some caps, something. Didn't get anything but dick though."

Butch did have the comfort of tobacco, so when he was done with the notes he reached over to the end table and lit up. "Now you are literally telling me you tried to be a whore, and just ended up a slut. And you know I ain't judging you for that, Tate. If it bothered me that much I wouldn't be here now."

"Then what fucking bothers you?"

"That I love you. That you don't love me."

Tate's mouth went dry. Why did Butch always have to say those pretty, sick words. Over and over since the purifier.

"Love just seems so," Tate snickered, "happy."

Butch didn't speak after that. Just pulled Tate back into bed, held him like some domestic bullshit that seemed more and like what they were supposed to be doing as they got older and older. Didn't scare either of them so much anymore. Laying together and doing nothing.

In the morning, Butch was gone. A3-21 was still listening to the radio and flipping through old magazines. Maybe catching up on what he had missed in the weeks he had been deactivated. Butch didn't much care for the droid, probably turned him off as soon as Tate left. Didn't want to take him in the first place. Butch thought they should either leave him be or destroy the unit altogether. After what he had done to Tate, the latter option was definitely the preferred one.

"Where'd Butch go?" Tate poured himself a box of Sugar Bombs.

"Didn't say." A3-21's voice still sounded like Harkness, but without all of the intonation there. There was no synthesized memories to fill in the blanks of experience and emotion. Still, sounded real enough.

When he was finished with breakfast, Tate decided to make good on his promise to visit Moira. Butch would be back when it suited him. They'd fought worse than this plenty of times. Fights with broken noses and broken bones. It was a miracle they both still had their eyes intact because while they were excellent fighters, they were downright dirty with each other. Hair pulling, biting, spitting, all that shit that ended up turning Tate on. Like a fucking lightswitch.

For whatever reason, at eighteen during a particularly nasty encounter, blood streaming from his nose and Butch with a eye already turning purple, Tate decided to suck on Butch's neck, and Butch just rolled with it. Well, Tate knew why he did it. Butch was gorgeous as all fuck, that's why he did it. What Tate didn't get was why with that dam broken Butch started palming his erection through his jumpsuit and went to kissing right back.

Moira greeted Tate with a smile and a wave and said she'd be right with him once she finished packing up a box that was going to Crazy Wolfgang the next time he came through town. While she worked, Tate played with the dials of a broken toaster, depressing the spring and watching it bounce back up.

Moira fixed her hair a little when she was done and slid back behind the counter, plopping herself down on the stool. Leaning forward, she grilled Tate on his trip. She started with the practical, what salvage options looked like, the feasibility of making the trip on different types of craft, what enemies one should expect to encounter. It wasn't until she was on her third Nuka-cola and Tate was on his fourth that she started asking the romantic questions. About the sunsets and the way the air smelled. If plants grew green and if so, how tall. Tate already knew that she dreamed about flowers, something that she had only seen in pre-War picture books.

When curiosity got the best of Tate and Moira's had been satiated, he asked a selfish question, one he didn't really want an answer to.

"So, you and Butch, how long has that been going on?" He pretended that her face was Amata's and that he was asking about someone other than Butch. Except Amata had Butch too. Damn.

"You gotta look out for your best friend, right?" She winked at Tate and smiled coyly. "Don't worry, I'm not leading him on. He knows it's just for fun."

Tate sometimes forgot how old everyone was. Moira was probably ten years older than him and Butch. Of course she would think that Butch was the innocent, potentially naive party in the matter. He probably was.

Moira rinsed out the Nuka bottles with the smallest bit of purified water so they wouldn't attract flies and stacked them in the corner. "You're welcome so stay for lunch, if you'd like?"

Tate refused her offer with a promise to come another day with some of the tradeables he had acquired out at Point Lookout. Moira locked the door behind him so her lunch break would be undisturbed.

Instead of taking the straightforward path back to the house, Tate swung between Megaton's elevated levels, using the railings to boost him up. Some were more stable than others and one day one of them was bound to give under his weight. As long as today wasn't that day he didn't much care. Simms tolerated his antics only because it was one of Tate's less meddlesome activities.

Butch still hadn't come home. A3-21 was repairing The pistol that Tate seldom used and the laser rifle Butch had gotten from the Brotherhood.

Laid up on the couch, Tate decided his best means of occupying his time was talking to the droid. But good old A3-21 wasn't much of a talker with his personality uninstalled, so Tate settled on having the droid read from The Sorrows of Young Werther until he fell asleep.

Butch wasn't back in the evening. Or the next day, or the next. Tate ended up turning off A3-21 because he got sick of staring at his sad face. He draped a blanket over the unit like he was just a drunk napping in the corner. Wadsworth could make his meals just as well as the more sophisticated android.

When Butch was still not home by dinner of the fifth night, Tate turned the android back on. He didn't know much about robots, that was really more Butch's thing. But A3-21 was sophisticated enough that Tate just had to bark commands and the droid could practically program himself. He was a lot like Charon in that way, but a lot not like Charon because Charon actually expressed his sour opinions while undertaking whatever task he had been assigned.

"Hey, A? Do you want to be that asshole Harkness again?"

"I can't want anything, Tate."

With Butch gone, Tate stopped messing with things like dishes and ate handfuls of Sugar Bombs straight out of the box.

"Do you remember being Harkness?" Tate chewed and talked at the same time, since robots had no shits to give about his behavior.

"No, well. A bit." It was the first time Tate could remember A3-21 expressing uncertainty about something.

"If I instructed you to forget a conversation, would you?"

"Yes."

"Cool." Tate washed down his cereal with Nuka-cola and wiped his mouth on his shirt sleeve. He didn't tell the droid anything important, but told him to forget it all anyway.

When Butch finally came home he smelled of gunpowder and his mouth tasted like smoke and beer. Tate wanted to climb inside his body and live there forever if it would be like this. Even though Butch never liked it, Tate grabbed onto his hair with both hands. Because Tate fucking loved that shit, forcing their mouths together and their tongues having no where else to go but into each other.

"Too long," Butch growled in between nipping at Tate's neck, running his lips over his Adam's apple and down to his sternum. Butch's lips were always soft, unlike anyone else's. He had these tubes of hardened oil that he never shared with anyone, except when it got on Tate this way. It would linger on his skin in slightly sticky, waxy patches.

Tate had gone to bed in just his underwear but even that felt too constricting as his body reacted. Since Butch had been gone he hadn't touched himself, or had the droid touch him. Hadn't felt like it. But now five days of inattention were making themselves known. When Butch's hands found the elastic of his boxers, Tate lifted his hips off the bed so they could be pulled off. Butch had apparently come to bed naked, knowing full well where they would end up.

"Sit on my lap, Tate." Words were so much sweeter when they sounded like commands. After years of accidental heroism, Tate just didn't want to be responsible. Not in this way, at least.

Butch rocked back onto his heels, his legs folded underneath him, that perfect cock jutting out, waiting for Tate to come to him. They'd done it like this before. Tate had only ever done it this way with Butch. Done it lots of ways with Butch. Done it lots of ways with other people too. But this was for them.

Even in the low light, Tate could see how swollen Butch's waxed lips had become.

Tate reached into the bedside drawer for the lube and applied it liberally to Butch's erection. He smirked a little when Butch hissed; in his enthusiasm Tate hadn't spent the time to warm it in his palm.

"Tell me you want me, Butch."

"Fuck, Nosebleed," Butch threw his head back as Tate carefully stroked him. Too much and it would be over too quick. "Wanna show you how much I love you. And if this is the only way, I'll do it."

Tate felt his cheeks warm, but that didn't mean he was blushing. Surprising though, that there was any blood left to rush to his cheeks. Made his stomach tight, too.

"Don't say that."

"It's true."

Instead of pushing the issue further, Tate released Butch from his grip and climbed on top of him instead. It was a delicate process of positioning, curling his legs around Butch's torso and lining up his cock with his entrance. Butch wrapped his arms around Tate's back to prevent him from falling backwards as much as holding him close. It was a bit of both, really. Like this Tate could only thrust shallowly and Butch would have to make up the rest. Always did though.

This position reversed their heights, with Tate's head just above Butch's. Tate pressed his nose into Butch's hair and Butch continued pressing his lips to Tate's neck. Tate's arms wrapped around Butch's shoulders because it felt like that was the right place for them to be.

Butch sucked right at his clavicle until it was sure to leave a purple bruise. Maybe tomorrow they would beat each other until they were bruised too, the two sets of marks indistinguishable from each other.

If he wanted to, Butch could bring Tate off very quickly this way, biting and thrusting and touching his cock. Tate knew full well that Butch knew all the right buttons to press, but he didn't. No, the fucker liked drawing it out until Tate was a panting, shivering, desperate mess. It was the kind of fuck that only became possible through knowing each other in a profoundly perverse sort of way. Idly, Tate considered the prospect that it wasn't perverse at all. That maybe in books when people talked about making love, this was what that was. Maybe it didn't have to be so damn happy. Maybe it could be quiet, needy, desperate, and messed up.

Only when he started clawing at Butch's back, shaking in his arms, moaning against the crown of his head, did everything shift. A little change of angle and Butch's voice in his ear was all it took. "You're mine, Tate."

It was so wildly possessive and primal that Tate nearly believed it. He came between their bodies, mostly on himself but it would rub off on Butch eventually. That word repeated over and over, spinning them both out of control as Tate twitched and spasmed. "Mine, mine, mine."

Punctuated with hips and bites and moans.

When Butch came it was with an uncharacteristic whine, higher than the pitch of his voice. Tate hadn't fully regained composure but felt Butch coating his insides and locking them together. Butch panted and rubbed Tate's back in lazy strokes. Tilting his head down, Tate caught Butch's lips. The waxiness was long gone, all over Tate's body for sure.

Butch lowered Tate so his back hit the mattress and worked to untangle them from each other. In the process, he brought the inside of Tate's ankle to his lips and kissed it, before lowering it onto the bed.

"I'll be back, want a bottle of water?" Butch sat on the edge of the bed, looking out towards the landing. They hadn't even bothered to close the door. No one else was there except for the robots.

"Yeah." Tate stared up at the metal ceiling. It would be nice to be alone, even if it was only for a minute.

The soft sounds of Butch speaking to Wadsworth floated up the stairs.

This was an impasse they had reached before, maybe a half dozen times since the purifier. Since Butch had to mumble something about loving Tate, like it was some big, world changing deal. Tate wouldn't say it back and Butch would mope. In retaliation Tate would fuck the droid because Charon was dead and that was his fucking fault too. Sometimes Butch left, but rarely for more than a few hours. He'd come home and they'd fuck and Tate would feel almost like it was okay. It was okay that Tate loved Butch too because even though he was messed up, chewed up, and spit out, Butch didn't give a fuck about that.

It was because they had repeated this cycle of small, incremental changes that Tate decided to say something. Something that thus far he had only told Amata, and maybe only then for selfish reasons. And Amata had thrown him away, exiled from the vault. But he had thrown her away too, exiling her from a surface she would never know. If Tate had ever been as selfish as Madison Li had told him he was, he would have blamed it on Butch.

Butch tossed the bottle at him and a damp rag too. Tate wiped down his stomach before sitting up and starting on the water.

Lots of little things led up to this confession. Like Butch knowing to bring a bottle of water, or that five days was just on the edge of too much, or that he'd never be mad at Moira. So no, this wasn't a big thing, just a cumulative one.

"I've said it before. Just never to you."

"What are you talking about?"

"I told Amata, back in the vault."

"Please, I'm too tired, speak like a normal person." Butch took the water bottle from Tate's hands.

"I've said I love you before, to Amata, back in the vault."

Butch laughed. "Yeah well, everyone knew you loved Amata. You were obsessed with her. That's also how I knew you were gay as hell. If you weren't, you would've married that girl at sixteen."

That hadn't been what Tate meant. Though he also meant that. As a child he had freely given his love to Amata, though always platonic. Just wasn't wired that way, he assumed. Got all the soft, mushy feelings when he looked at her, but not the hard, sharp pangs of arousal. Never bothered him much.

"No, I mean," it suddenly struck Tate that this was an awful way to explain things to Butch. "The Wasteland, it changes people. It changed me and changed you. Hell, Amata is still home and it's even changed her, I'm sure of it. So what if, it changes you, and you don't want me."

"Dunno what you're talking about. You've always been a dickhead, Nosebleed."

The water bottle ran dry and Butch tossed it out of the room and over the railing. One of the robots would pick it up and dispose of it properly.

"I can't control you. And it scares the shit out of me."

"Yeah? Tough." Butch wrapped his arm around Tate's shoulders and pulled him close. Tate's bicep pressed against Butch's side. "But don't be scared. You might decide you don't want me one day too."

"I'm pretty sure that's not going away. I pretty much hit puberty and wanted to fuck your brains out."

Butch shrugged. "So I ugh, blossomed a little later than you, fuck that sounds gay. But really, you're the one going around and wanting other people. Letting other people fuck you. I'm not the one doing that. And don't start with that fucking list, okay?"

"Wouldn't dream of it," Tate scowled.

"Tate," Butch's voice went quiet in the semi-darkness. "What am I to you?"

"My best friend," he hesitated. "When I just think about you in my head, you're my best friend and my boyfriend. Though I do a shitty job of it."

"You do alright, other than when you cheat on me." Tate could tell that Butch was itching for a cigarette. He smoked in bed all the time, so he wasn't sure what was stopping him.

"A3-21 isn't even a person. He's just like...the world's most advanced dildo or something."

"And Charon?"

"Same. He didn't even like it. I think the guy fucking hated me. The point is, they don't have a choice. They can't leave me. They're safe. You, you scare the shit out of me sometimes. Cause you might leave me for some pretty blonde in leather armor."

"Tate, you're my pretty blond in leather armor."

"Oh, shut the fuck up."

Butch was smiling, that was a start. "Though not so blond at the moment. Suppose I'll fix that in the morning." He ruffled Tate's hair with one hand.

"Where were you?"

"I saw some ghouls about some real estate." Well, that was evasive. "I found that guy, Burke, from those letters you got. At Tenpenny Tower. I killed him. The ghouls killed everyone inside the tower. I guess they sort of deserved it, but I killed Burke."

"Why?" Tate wasn't too concerned that Butch had killed someone in a generic sense. They killed people all the time. Sometimes for survival, sometimes by accident, sometimes because it seemed like the right thing to do and they didn't fully consider the consequences.

"Dunno, only that I got it in my head that you'd want that. Avenge you or some shit. You feel avenged?"

"Well, he was an asshole." It was as close to a thanks as Tate could get under the circumstances.

"I don't wanna be your boyfriend."

That hit Tate like a ton of bricks. He probably fucking deserved it though. But he also knew, right on the surface of his desires, that he wouldn't stop wanting Butch. Even if they wouldn't be together, he'd still give himself over at every opportunity. He'd track Butch across the Wasteland and jump down his pants at every turn. Hold a gun to his head while he rode Butch's fucking perfect cock if he had to. He'd say a bunch of desperate things to make Butch take him back, because, in the end, it wasn't really just about sex. And that was the tricky part.

"I see..."

"Wanna be your husband."

Butch really was a fucking masochist.

When Tate didn't respond, they just fell asleep like the whole thing never happened. Tate half-believed Butch would be gone again in the morning.

He wasn't though. They woke and showered and ate shitty irradiated food. Butch fixed Tate's hack job on his hair best he could and Tate suggested they go scaving after just for the sake of having something to do. He supposed Butch had plenty of combat recently, but he hadn't. Still, Butch was quick to agree and they decided on leaving the droid behind.

Halfway to nowhere in particular they were stopped by a Brotherhood patrol that recognized them. How even the peons knew Tate's shaded face was a mystery. The two of them together weren't particularly identifiable. Just two guys with leather armor and some conventional weaponry. Butch's laser rifle was a little odd, but it was never the brunet they singled out.

Tate said no to them because he always did. He'd say no a billion times over. The Enclave weren't any of his fucking business anymore. Never really were his business.

They stopped in little out of the way spots, alcoves and nooks where inexperienced travelers thought they could rest up for the night and instead found themselves dead in the morning. What was still left was junk that would be difficult to sell at a good price if the seller wasn't Tate. He could turn used pencils into profit if it suited him.

Half the time they held hands and the other half they had their weapons drawn. It was a good balance, all things considered. They talked about Point Lookout as if it hadn't been just an excuse for Tate to run away.

"Well, I'm just glad you made it home, eventually."

"Home?" Tate snickered. "We can't go home, Butch. Amata won't let us."

It struck Tate then that all the cumulative things were awfully terrifying and liberating. Like that he had run for his life at 19 even though was much more inclined to stay and fight. He had finished his Pop's work at 20 even though he had never become a scientist. He lost a piece of his brain at 21 and was still standing next to his best friend, watching the sun go down through the radioactive haze of a world that should have been dead. But it was brutally, beautifully, alive.

"Last night. When I was talking about Amata. You didn't understand me."

"What about Amata now?" Butch always hated it when Tate got all indirect with his speech.

"I love you, Butch."

Butch's hand tensed in his, but he said nothing. He let Tate talk, because he was Butch and he knew better.

"Back in the vault, after I killed the Overseer, before we left together, I told Amata that I loved you back then. That's why I had to take you," saying it out loud like this was confirmation of the fact he wasn't a good person, he was incapable of being good. While he held his best friend's hand, he left his best friend behind. "She said okay, that's fine. She'd find someone else who could be Overseer, she was still so young anyway, and we'd all go up together. The three of us," he couldn't keep his voice from cracking.

"But you made me promise to keep her in the vault. So I told her 'no, just me and Butch are going, you're staying.' And you hadn't told me anything about how you two were gonna have a baby. And she was so angry with me. Angry and sad. I had just murdered her dad. And my Pop was dead too and I was gonna run off and leave her behind again. But I was taking her baby's father with me too this time because I was a selfish cunt. But you know Amata, she didn't say it like that. She just looked angry and a little sad and told me she was gonna have your baby. Then I understood why you made me promise. It's the same reason my Pop took me down there, why your ancestors waited for their number to be called for their place down in the vault. It's supposed to be safe. It is safe."

The sun was receding; they were running out of time.

"If I could take it all back and go home, I would, Butch."

"I wouldn't."

"Yeah you would, you idiot. Don't act tough," Tate smiled, despite everything. "If we never left the vault one of us would have married her by now and we'd all be fucking happy."

"Maybe. She would have preferred you as a husband, though."

"It would be such a scandal," Tate laughed. "Could you imagine? Me hitched to Amata and a little blue-eyed baby. Everyone would know."

"Sick, you'd get off on that shit, wouldn't you?"

"The allure if fucking a straight guy? Watching him fuck my wife then fuck me? Yeah, of course." Tate gripped the lapel of Butch's jacket with his free hand.

"I ain't straight, Nosebleed." Butch unclasped their hands and went for his pack of cigarettes. Tate stepped back. The end of the cigarette glowed red in the dusk.

"Well, you aren't gay either."

Butch shrugged, "Never said I was."

"I miss her. I miss her so fucking much. More than home, more than my Pop. I think I miss her because she's still there and she wants nothing to do with me. She hates me."

"You know that girl can't hate you, don't be an idiot."

"It'll never be right, without her."

"Is this why I'm never enough for you? Because I sure as shit would prefer for you to have some sort of impotent obsession with Moira or Nova than for you to keep fucking the android."

"No, that's...something else. That's the control thing."

"You sure do have a lot of problems."

They would have to move soon. Wasn't safe out in the open after the sun went down.

"And you don't mind?"

"Nah, never did. Never will. We're not like that, you and me." Butch put out his cigarette under his boot and reached for Tate, pulling him close and swinging one arm over his shoulders. Smelled like cigarettes and Tate liked that. He supposed they'd never have that sharp, synthetic smell of the vault clinging to them again. Like those cleaning products that were supposed to smell like lemons, though none of them had ever seen a lemon.

Tate wanted to cry. Wanted to cry for Amata and for the vault that he'd never see again but dreamed of all the time. For the father that he hated but still couldn't save. All the trappings of who he was two years ago, gone. But he came out on the other side, with Butch.

"Don't wanna be your boyfriend, either."

"Good."

Butch's arm tightened around him.


End file.
